


The Vault

by redibis (orphan_account)



Category: Homestuck, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Novella, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-02
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:09:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 55,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/redibis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been weeks since Problem Sleuth's last case and that paycheck is finally running out. The fridge is empty. The fact that he owns the building is the only thing stopping him being evicted. Ace Dick is away on "vacation", that hysterical dame that calls on him sometimes is getting more and more distant, and he's just about at his wits' end. When Problem Sleuth gets a call from Diamonds Droog saying Clubs Deuce has been murdered by a member of the Felt, he's reluctant at first, but something about the case is terribly intriguing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Phone Call

     It was a muggy August night and my phone was actually working for once. This was notable because in my part of town, not many folks actually had a phone, and if they did, it was one of the old party line dealies. Me, I had a personal telephone with a couple of direct lines to certain influential people. Everyone else, I had to go through the operator. But that was alright, because I'd never been overly fond of telephones to begin with.

Street lights flickered outside my window. I pitied any moth unlucky enough to think one of those lights was the moon; a moth like that must have had some kind of problem in his life. Substance abuse, maybe. Or maybe his little moth girl friend decided to walk out on him. But there I was, digressing again. It wasn't about the moths or the street light. It was about me, the nascent moonlight barely struggling through the window (which admittedly needed a good washing) and that telephone.

I was reclined in the tattered chair in my hovel of an office, practically wallowing in my penniless penury as I always did, and damn near salivating over how much I'd love to sink my teeth into a nice steak dinner like any sensible person would be doing right about now. I glanced at my watch and sighed. I hadn't eaten anything at all since lunch. I didn't have a nice steak dinner-- couldn't technically afford one even if I wanted one-- so I gnawed on some stale beef jerky instead. _C'est la vie_ , as they say in the _fromage_ district. Such is life. You don't really get to pick whether or not you do well. There's no saying excuse me, I'd like to be a little higher up on the social ladder. You take what you can get. Especially if you're already nobody important.

My office was quiet. I could occasionally hear my pal and partner in crime-fighting P.I. goofing around with that nervous little broad of his next door. Probably playing board games or something like that; what a child. My other neighbor Ace was nowhere to be found; he'd gone on vacation a while ago. He called it a business trip, but one doesn't simply take a business trip to an undisclosed location with several thousand dollars in cash. He knew we'd know where he was going. He just didn't want anybody else to worry-- not that anybody would worry about him. He was 6'4" and weighed roughly the same as a refrigerator. Built like one, too. No, there was no reason to worry about Ace Dick. He could floor anybody who gave him any trouble without batting an eyelash.

I hoped that wherever he was, he was making a killing at the slots.

Everything was right as rain, or at least right as some other marginally less acceptable kind of precipitation, until the phone rang. Ringing phones are a bit of a bad omen of mine because nobody ever calls me unless they need something done. It's never just a call to chat; everybody always needs something from you. The Inspector next door says I need to start meditating and confront my fear, and his dame agrees. Me, I think it's a load of pseudoscientific bunk, but nonetheless I answered the phone and mentally chalked up a great big bravery point for myself. Way to go, Problem Sleuth. Only 99 more points to go and then you can unplug the damn thing for a whole week.

I scooted my chair backwards and slid my feet off the desk. I leaned on it with one elbow, holding the phone to my ear with the other hand. Now was the time to break out the motormouth phone-answering antics, even if I knew whoever was on the other end wasn't going to make me very happy. I'd practiced this a hundred times before so everything would go according to plan whenever I had it in me to answer the phone. "You've reached Problem Sleuth's office; you got a problem, I'll sleuth it. How can I help you tonight, sir or mada--"

"James." My blood went cold like I was standing outside in a snowstorm. It was a voice I knew too well. A voice that belonged to somebody I'd said farewell and good riddance to not more than a couple weeks ago. I didn't know he'd kept my address. I didn't even know he knew how to talk to a telephone operator without her hanging up right away. I didn't know he apparently had no idea that "don't you ever call me again, you greedy son of a bitch" meant exactly what it said.

"Clubs Deuce is dead, James," said Droog. "Thought you might want to know."

"Clubs Deuce? The little guy?" Any other time I would've argued with him for any amount of time over whether or not it actually counted that I was on duty and which of us was the bigger idiot, but I liked that fella Deuce. He was a little ball of sunshine compared to the other three gloomy saps in the Midnight Crew. Not that I could do anything about them. Gang activity was, and still is, legally strictly a no-go for Team Sleuth. Mayor's orders. I was duty-bound not to lay a finger on them, because no matter how illegal their prospects may have gotten, they were still infinitely better than the Mobster Kingpin, the city's former gang lord, had been before the boys and I did him in. That, and they were ridiculously wealthy. They could afford to pay off anyone in the city, even the mayor. Probably especially the mayor. The boys and I received a nice enough subsidy for staying away from him, so I didn't consider it too big a loss. Still, pestering Droog had been more often than not the highlight of days when I didn't have cases-- or when he wasn't too angry to handle. It had been a while since we'd talked, though, because of the aforementioned row we'd had. I had the sinking feeling he was doing his level best to avoid me, so I let him. The best thing to do when I got like this after a big argument was to leave him be until he apologized, which was rarely. That didn't quite sit well with my conscience-- call me whatever you like, but I liked attention.

The long and short of it was that if Droog was calling me now, there was a good reason for it, and Clubs Deuce being dead was a pretty good one. The Crew liked to look after its own, so right about now they'd probably be all over the city trying to rat out who'd done it.

"Yeah. Boxcars is pretty torn up. Asked me to give you a call, see if you can't sleuth our little problem."

"And? What am I supposed to do?" He knew the law as well as I did, even if he chose to disregard it most of the time. "The mayor'll be knocking my door down, Droog--"

"Find out who done it, you fucking numbskull. Find out why."

That was just like Droog, not to listen to reason when he wanted something done. "Listen, you selfish idiot, you take a snowball and you put in in Hell. The chances of it not melting, squared, are the chances of me lifting a finger to help you one little bit."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. I considered just hanging up, but knowing Droog, he was probably checking with the boss man to make sure what he was going to say next was okay. Hierarchies. They make me sick. Finally, Droog said, "We can pay you."

I had to admit, that piqued my interest. I might have been sore with him, but if he was promising cash, well, that was another story. "How much?" I had to ask.

"More than you're making now, that's for certain."

I didn't even have to think about it before the word jumped out of my mouth. "Deal."

Droog cleared his throat. "Now, you listen to me, James, and you listen good. Slick says no payment until you solve this case."

I jumped up from my chair. "That's daylight robbery!"

"You want to take it up with him?"

I took a long pause, weighing the possibilities. If I told him no, Hell'dfreeze over before I'd bother his boss, then I'd end up with nothing until I figured out a case that I knew nothing about. If I told him yes, I wanted to, I would probably at least be hospitalized. "Whatever," I said. I was going to hang up, but I thought better of it. "Goodnight."

"Be at the Three In The Morning tomorrow, first thing. The Three A.M., Sleuth, not the Morningstar. You show up _there_ and Slick will have you filled with daylight before you can say Jack--"

My mind supplied me with Spades Slick's old alias, back from his bodyguard days. "Noir?"

"Robinson."

"Oh."

"Be there, James."

"Fine."

"Goodnight." He hung up before I did. I swore then and there that I was going to get him, and I was going to get him good. Nobody hangs up before Problem Sleuth and gets away with it.

I glanced at the map of Midnight City pinned to the wall behind me; one corner of it was curling away from the peeling mural that had been painted there years ago. Note to self: obtain thumbtacks. Addendum: get rid of that god-awful mural.

The Three In The Morning, which everyone pretty much called the 3AM, was the city's foremost disreputable establishment, a whopper of a casino, and not to mention a bar. Its lower levels, underground, housed the Midnight Crew's base of operations, codenamed the Morningstar-- and normal patrons were absolutely not allowed in the Morningstar. The 3AM was supposed to be under the radar, but a day didn't go by that the coppers themselves weren't bellied up to the bar there. Money talks, especially to cops. It says, "Look the other way and you might wake up tomorrow morning."

Rumor had it that Snowman, Slick's love/hate interest, long story, had the 3AM in the palm of her hand. Rumor also had it that she was seeing Droog on the side. Rumor had a lot of things, and it was my job to take some of those things away and stomp on them, like a kid on the playground stealing somebody else's big bouncing inflatable green ball and kicking it straight over the fence. Kickball game's over, kids. Go home.

If Droog wanted me at the 3AM, I'd go, but I'd do it with so many grains of salt that my salinity would far outweigh that of every ocean on every planet with liquid water, ever. I would be saltier than the saltiest sea dog that ever roamed the seven seas with a hook for a hand and a chip on his shoulder about a boy that just wouldn't grow up. The plan was, I was going to be so angry that he would hopefully capitulate and call off the case. That was the plan. The plan did not go through because I am not usually the one with the plan; thus, my plans are rarely, if ever, watertight. Especially when I have to go behind the mayor's back to deal with the Crew. P.I. is usually the one with the plan. I didn't let it phase me. A good detective always rolls with what comes to him. So when I ended up backing out of my own admittedly terrible plan, nobody was disappointed.

Grumbling the whole time about the stupid Midnight Crew and the stupid Felt and their stupid gang politics, I nodded off to dream-land and woke up the next morning with my heart in my stomach, and not much else. I rummaged through the fridge and found exactly three bottles of mustard and one half-bottle of mayonnaise. How sad; a fridge full of condiments. It was like I didn't even live there.

Maybe it was too much to hope for, but I sure was hoping there'd be a free breakfast or two in this case somewhere. Free lunch might not have existed-- Ace claims to have had one once, but I say it's horsefeathers-- but free breakfast must have. It's a shame to see a man hungry so early in the morning.

I shuffled out the door that I had kept unlocked ever since my old nemesis, the Mobster Kingpin, had met his unlikely demise at the business end of Pickle Inspector's revolver. I'd never had any need to keep the door locked since then, because everyone knew not to mess with me. That, and the fact that the Midnight Crew had had me taken off the police force so nobody wanted to mess with me anyway. But that's irrelevant and besides, every time I think about it I usually end up in the bad part of downtown in the middle of a bar fight with a tab too big to pay.

The street was nearly empty because the sun was still turning over in its bed, begging for a few more minutes. Any sap with half a brain would be in bed at this hour. I supposed, then, that my brain was composed half of nothing, half of a dedication to sweet Lady Justice, and half of the promise of cold, hard cash. I wondered idly if three halves counted as half of anything. Love of money, and all that jazz. At least I wasn't evil; I thought so, anyway.

It was darker than a panther in a cave. The street lights had kicked off twenty minutes ago, but the sun still hadn't risen yet. Nobody's house lights were on because everybody was still asleep. I walked along in silence, guided by the light of the newborn sun just barely cutting through the night's shroud of fog. It was kind of peaceful, and I had plenty of time to think about things that weren't at all depressing.

Cases where kids die are the worst. From what I knew of Clubs Deuce, he'd gotten tangled up with the mob when he was just barely out of grade school. That was several years ago, now, but the little fella couldn't have been more than-- I calculated quickly-- twenty-two. He was a veritable savant when it came to explosives, but otherwise he was a complete dolt. I'd never met him in person, but I knew he was good friends with Hearts Boxcars, the Midnight Crew's heavy muscle. If there's one thing you've got to know about Hearts Boxcars, it's that when he gambles, he always rolls boxcars. I've never even heard stories about him rolling anything other than double sixes, all the way.Another thing worth mentioning is that you don't dare approach anyone he's declared to be under his protection. Quid pro quo: I'd never met Deuce in person.

I had met Diamonds Droog, though. I could spend pages and pages writing about what a smug goon he was. I've already gone through several typewriter ribbons about it, somewhere else. I forget which case file that was, but believe you me: a threat from Diamonds Droog is not to be taken lightly. I'd learned my lesson on that all too swiftly. The less said about it, the better.

The final member of the Midnight Crew I knew anything substantial about was Spades Slick. He was the leader, still is, and probably always will be. He wouldn't be the boss man, if I had anything to say about it. He's the most conniving, backstabbing palooka of a leader that ever walked the salted earth of the city he claimed to have built from the ground up; namely, Midnight City. The only good thing I ever said about him (or ever will) was that he knew how to keep a crew loyal. I'd never seen so much pure charisma in one place before. We don't get to pick our gifts, I guess. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was envious of how many cojones he seemed to have, but, well, I was envious. I'd seen people kill and be killed to be as audacious as Spades Slick.

I had a personal vendetta for Spades Slick because when we'd first met, he'd nearly gotten me killed-- and quite on purpose, too. I could tell right away by the way that grin crept across his face when I was shouting him up and down, hyperventilating, shaking all over, after I'd managed to jump out of the train...

But here I go again. Digressing. I better talk about something else.

Everyone else connected to the Crew wasn't worth the ink it took to write about them. I'd never met any of them, and I didn't care to. My sphere of influence hardly extended beyond those four-- three, now-- for reasons I didn't care to uncover at present.

I could take a little time here to talk about Snowman, who had her claws ass deep into the Crew as anything, but... No. We don't talk about Snowman if we can help it. Before he took a leave of absence, Ace and I once had a bet going that she could hear people who say her name. I was not willing to lose that bet. She came from a real rough background and she'd made something of herself doing things gentlemen don't talk about in polite company. Suffice to say Snowman's a real sharp dame, and nobody messes with her. Nobody.

When I got to the 3AM, Droog was the only one there, sitting in a booth all the way in the back. Probably the bastard wanted me to have to walk as far as possible. It wasn't enough that I'd gotten up at God-o'-clock, no-- I had to work for it, damn it. So be it. I marched past the sleepy-looking waitresses playing cards at the tables, ignored the cook yelling orders from the kitchen, and stared Droog down before I threw my hat and jacket into the seat.

I managed to avoid the stares from the bartender and the waitresses lounging around, mostly because there was a very short list of people who could stare at Diamonds Droog and get away with it. I sat down. There was coffee sitting on the table; two mugs. One for him; one for me. Most likely his was black and bitter but mine was black and sweet. It's nice, having a mortal enemy who knows how you like your coffee.

"My God, has it happened?" I said, sliding into the cracked vinyl seat. "Has Diamonds Droog finally grown a heart?"

"Slick owns this place anyhow," Droog said, dismissively. "Order whatever you please, as far as I'm concerned. Not comin' out of my pocket or out of yours. Innocent taxpayers', maybe. Hope your fragile conscience can handle it."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." I grabbed a menu and flipped through it petulantly. "Hashbrowns sounds good." I called a weary-looking waitress over and told her the same; she bustled away to the kitchen to do some starchy, potato-based magic. "Then again, I really shouldn't--" My stomach growled, proving exactly the opposite of the point I was trying to make. Good ol' biology.

"Feed yourself, for God's sake. Eating some hashbrowns or not eating them isn't going to bring Deuce back. Take your time."

"Believe me, I know all about alternate realities. Somewhere, somewhen, Deuce is still alive because somebody chose not to eat a hashbrown at some point in time." I joked, sure, but nobody was laughing. Droog never laughed anyway, or rather, when he did, that was when you needed to be careful. Droog laughing meant you were probably going to die. Soon.

"Right."

"Still, you can't change paradox space. And I haven't eaten anything substantial since dinner two days ago."

"Can't argue with that sort of logic."

"Quickest way to a man's heart, Droog." I sipped my coffee and smirked at him. As much as I hated the guy, it was good to have him around again. "Right through his stomach."

"I always thought it was directly behind the sternum."

"You thought wrong, my sinister friend."

"Whoever killed Deuce didn't think so." Droog took a calm sip of his steaming coffee. Too calm for having just declared something about a dead comrade. "His chest was completely tore open. Looked like a dog ate his keeshkas or something. Intestines, heart-- totally gone. No idea where they're at. We thought Boxcars might have done it when we weren't looking, but those guts definitely weren't in there when I dragged the little guy inside."

I swallowed the coffee in my mouth and glared at the coffee in my cup. That was... that was not an appetizing thought. At all.

"You don't like the rest of the Crew too much, do you," I said. That was something about him that had always made me uncomfortable. Not liking your comrades is a great big red mark in my book. Me, I'd killed for my boys and I'd do it again. Ace and the Inspector were like family to me. I doubted Droog had ever done a single thing to protect Boxcars or the little fella. Then again, Boxcars could take care of himself and the little fella too, so Droog probably didn't even need to waste time on them... Whatever. It still didn't bear thinking about. I didn't know where I was going with that train of thought. Fortunately Droog derailed it before I started psychoanalyzing the lot of them.

"Awfully base, they are, if I'm honest. I'm in it for the bread. That, and stopping Slick killing everyone. And Snowman killing Slick."

"'Course you are." Diamonds Droog was the most materialistic son of a gun I'd ever met, totally consumed with the worst kind of avarice from his hat to his toenails. He'd sell out his own mother for a pretty penny, if he even had a mother. I knew next to nothing about him, compared to what he knew about me, and I was sure he'd prefer to keep it that way. The only thing I knew for a fact was that he'd been a bodyguard in their old homeland before they built the city. I wondered if some tie still lingered between them, or if he really was just in it for the money. I can't say either would have surprised me.

"What about you?" he asked, looking intensely bored. He had a way of finding out things without actually sounding interested in them. "You actually like Ace?"

"No, not especially. But I wouldn't be so casual-like if somebody'd gone and offed him. Certainly not if a dog'd eaten his guts or something."

Droog shrugged as if to say fair enough.

I sighed, wondering where the bird with breakfast had gone. My stomach grumbled. I told it to lay off. It said no and gurgled like Ace after a night of gin and enchiladas. After what seemed like a million years of sitting silently with Droog occasionally taking a break from staring at me to suck down more of his coffee, the waitress finally showed up.

"Right, so, let's hear the details," I told Droog as the girl left, drowning the potatoes in ketchup. "You talk, I'll eat. Mind like a steel trap."

He began with a sigh. "Clover came to our door last night holding Deuce in his arms. Knees all shaking, snot running down his face. He was torn up. Kid was dead. Clover says he don't know who done it; bullcal, says I. He says don't hurt me mister Droog, I'm telling the truth, I'd have to be awfully unlucky to witness such an awful crime."

"And?"

"And you know how lucky the little bugger is, Sleuth. So I took the body and showed it to Slick, and he says we've got a problem on our hands now. Boxcars is going to be back in twenty minutes, he says. And after Boxcars got back was around the time I called you."

I chewed my breakfast thoughtfully, ruminating on processed potato bits and information alike. If he was telling the truth-- and he probably was, because he only ever lied when it was profitable-- then some unknown outsider had killed Deuce, and Clover had found the body, or at least had been sent to the Morningstar with it. It was the first time in a long time I'd had so few facts to go on, but something about this particular situation had grabbed my interest like a pit bull chewing on a kitten. "Did Clover tell you anything else?" I asked.

"No. He left right away."

"Hmm." Clover was a member of the Felt, a nefarious group of mobsters with occult powers involving the manifestation and manipulation of temporal anomalies. They'd had a strict grip on the Midnight City Stock Exchange for longer than I cared to admit. Why? Because with their combined powers, they could simply find a time when they'd be massively successful, then exploit the Hell out of it. They were richer than God. More simply, they did a bunch of weird time bushwa and stole a lot of money from a lot of people-- and I didn't like it. Something about messing with the linear flow of time (linear as we experience it, anyway) sat odd with me. The Midnight Crew, the Felt, and Team Sleuth have always been locked in a battle royale over who controls the city, and no amount of Sleuth diplomacy has ever been able to unlock them. Considering the Felt was our mutual enemy, and that Droog had come to me with the case before he'd gone to anybody else, I felt almost no qualms about buddying up to Droog to solve this case.

The Felt were no good. Clover's specialty was being so lucky that he could negate any separate timelines in which misfortune might befall him. He wasn't lying when he said that he hadn't witnessed Deuce's killing. It was probably safe to eliminate him as a suspect right off the bat, but I didn't want to jump the gun. He might have been lucky enough to get Droog to believe he wasn't lying. As far as my trust issues went, he was the one Felt who triggered all of 'em. He could lie the horns off a goat because he'd be too lucky to get caught. I sighed. There was no way to know for sure.

"Clover didn't do it," Droog said. "I can tell you that much right away."

"Yeah?"

"He and Deuce were real close, even if Slick and Snowman didn't want them to be. To say nothing of the Doctor."

"That old wet blanket doesn't like anybody having friends." The Doctor-- properly called Doc Scratch-- was the Felt's shadowy administrator. I'd never met him in person, either, and never wanted to. He was getting on in age, but he was still as dangerous as he'd ever been. Legend said he had a cue ball for a head, was omniscient, and had been around when the universe fell screaming out of an orchid. Total bunk, all of it. Everyone knows the universe fell screaming out of a lotus blossom. I wasn't sure about the cue ball or the omniscience.

"Clover and Deuce had the same birthday and everything," Droog said, after a moment of reflection. "I just remembered that."

There was something I didn't know. I knew they were both just kids, but I had no idea that they were the same age. I smiled bitterly to myself when I realized Droog and Iwere the same age, too. "Shame. Poor kids."

Droog nodded sagely and finished his coffee. I scarfed the rest of my breakfast and downed my coffee as well. It was too hot, but I'd nearly cauterized my esophagus many times before. My eyes watered. Despite the leak I'd sprung, there was something extremely hard-boiled about downing coffee with no regard to temperature.

"That's all I know. You going to take the case?"

I slammed the coffee mug down on the table and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I smirked. "Problem Sleuth," I said, with a dramatic pause, "always takes the case."


	2. The Felt

   Problem Sleuth didn't always take the case, but Diamonds Droog didn't have to know that.

   I was flung all over my office like paint splattered from an overzealous artist's frenzied brush. Butcher paper, filled with frantically scribbled notes, and yarn were tacked over the increasingly disturbing mural on the back wall. I had to link all my thoughts together somehow. Discarded papers were scattered across the floor and bed. This transformation took place every time I started a case I could really sink my teeth into. If I were on the wrong side of the law, it would have looked like a serial killer's decrepit hidey-hole.

   What I knew about the case was that somebody had killed Clubs Deuce, and the killer was probably a member of the Felt, considering who'd returned the kid's body to its rightful owners. It might have been a revenge killing, or perhaps it was meant to serve as a warning. Maybe whoever did it was just crazier than a shithouse rat. That was for me to sort through.

   The Felt was a strict crew, and Doc Scratch ran it tighter than Ace's hatband. Everyone had his (or in Snowman's case, her) own job to do, and nobody did anybody else's job on account of they all had some kind of unique mutant superpower. It didn't do my brain any good to dwell on how that was even possible. It was really rather unfair, come to think of it, at least to me. Yes, old Scratch kept them quartered as tightly as billiard balls in a rack-- literally. Because of this they all adopted monikers related to their assigned numbers. As thick-headed as some of them were, I had to give them credit-- some of their aliases were pretty clever, and they all wore hats the color of the ball that matched the number that had been assigned them.

   I snatched a piece of paper off the wall and scribbled down all the Felt's names on it. Broke my pencil in the process. I delved into my desk for a replacement and practically took a swim in all the useless junk there. I found a box of crayons buried at the bottom of one of the drawers, and decided to doodle their numbers and billiard balls, too. It was time to profile.    Itchy and Doze were the first pair of goons I ever had the misfortune of meeting. Itchy called himself Itchy because he was number one, solid yellow. Ichi: Japanese for one. He was faster than a cheetah on cocaine. His superpower allowed him to do something ungodly with the fabric of space-time. All he had to do was slow everything down relative to himself, and he was the fastest son of a biscuit-eating bulldog that ever walked the face of the planet. Doze was Itchy's polar opposite. Dos. Spanish for two. Solid blue ball. Where Itchy was a coked up cheetah, Doze was a drunk sloth swimming through molasses in the middle of January. He sped everything up relative to himself and crept along slow as you please. He'd be lucky if he managed to make it across a room in an hour. I doubted these two had any reason to target one of the members of the Midnight Crew specifically-- they were more of the camp that hated the Crew in a general sense-- so I crossed them out on my chart.

   The next pair of numbskulls weren't sequentially enumerated the way Itchy and Doze were. Trace and Fin were three and five, solid red and solid orange, respectively. They were twins, or so the rumor ran. I'd never had the misfortune of meeting them, but apparently one never let the other out of his sight on account of their abilities. Trace's name came from tres: Spanish for three. Fin's was from an old slang word for a fiver. Ace and I always used to speculate that this was because the work he did wasn't worth five dollars in the first place. Trace and Fin could see where you'd been and where you were going, in that order. Trace called the trails he followed past trails; Fin, future trails. I called it a bunch of nonsense and scribbled out their names. The two of them were dumber than headless turkeys, especially when they worked together. Even if they could have committed a murder by tracking Clubs Deuce down in the future and in the past, they wouldn't have half the brains required to actually plan something like that out.

   Clover, little Clover, was number four, and he called himself the way he did because he was the luckiest little twit anyone had ever met. Neither developmentally nor physically was he all there, you could tell. He might have been the same age Clubs Deuce had been-- twenty-two-- but he looked more like a baby-faced teenager and was treated like one too. I wasn't so sure what he was doing with the Felt, but he was represented by the solid purple ball, and he had all the luck. All of it. Anyone tried to fire a gun at him, it'd jam right up. He walked under ladders and broke mirrors for a lark; nothing bad could ever seem to happen to him. I wondered idly if he considered Deuce dying as bad luck. I wasn't so sure he hadn't had some kind of hand in it, so I left his name unmarred. Something about his innocent young lad act set off alarm bells in my brain.

   Number six was Die, who had some kind of affinity for rolling boxcars the same way our good and terrifying friend Hearts Boxcars did. On top of that, dice have six sides. I guess he thought it was a cute pun. He used to work at the City coroner's office a long time ago, I'd heard, and you could tell. He was morbid, liked to sit around reading arcane books all day, and had a stutter. Solid green ball. He carried around a voodoo doll with pins that represented anyone who might pose a threat to him. If he pulled the pin out of the doll, he was temporally transported to a timeline in which his aggressor didn't exist. Pretty handy for escaping crimes, and he was a sharp wit, too. No mark.

   The higher numbers of the Felt frequently proved to be the most competent, and this competence, in my experience, manifested itself mostly in lucky number seven: Crowbar. Two guesses what his primary weapon is. It's big, it's heavy, and it looks like the number he calls his very own. His time power allows him to wail on just about anything with that crowbar of his and negate its temporal qualities. This comes in handy when he gets stuck babysitting Eggs and Biscuits-- but we'll talk about them later. Crowbar had a mean streak a hundred miles wide, and wasn't averse to wanton destruction of property. He was a prime suspect for such a senseless killing. He had been the first member of the Felt proper, and the others had sort of gravitated towards him. Doc Scratch showed up later-- but that's another story altogether.

   Stitch was number nine, the striped yellow ball. He was the tailor and heavy weapons manager of the Felt, and everybody knows a stitch in time saves nine. The Felt all had enchanted effigies that could be repaired if their owners got damaged in a fight, so it followed that repairing the effigies repaired the wounds to their owners. Stitch was an old coot with a temper, but he wasn't one to hold a grudge, especially against someone as innocuous as Clubs Deuce. He and Droog had an age-old friendship/rivalry, even older than the one Droog had with me, but he wouldn't have gone out of his way to make a point against the Midnight Crew. He was almost civil to them. I doubted he was capable of killing a kid, anyway-- from what I heard, he had a soft spot for Clover and wouldn't be so dumb as to take out the kid's best friend. I crossed him off the list.

   The less said about number ten, Sawbuck, the better. His hat had a blue stripe for the ten-ball. He was a lump of gristle with a peanut for a brain, and he was near impossible to hurt. Stabbing him, shooting him, kicking him-- all that would get you was a one-way ticket into a timeline where all of your friends were dead. There's no way he could've planned far enough ahead to commit murder, either. I didn't even give him a second thought.

   Matchsticks was next up, number eleven. Striped red ball. He was skinny and tall, and he gave me a serious case of the heebie-jeebies-- worse than Die. He could start a fire and hop through it to another fire somewhere else in both location and time. I wouldn't have put it past him to commit a mindless crime just for the sake of bumping off a peripheral rival, so I left his name unmarked.

   Eggs and Biscuits; a dozen eggs and a baker's dozen of biscuits; striped purple and orange. What a pair of morons. Eggs had an egg timer that allowed him to make copies of himself at a specific point forward in time. This often resulted in dozens and dozens of Eggses running around being gigantic imbeciles. The effigies Stitch had made for him had to be stored in a warehouse several miles away from the Felt manor. Biscuits... Biscuits sat inside an old, broken oven and travelled forward in time at the rate of one second per second. He wasn't too bright. The only thing that made him dangerous was the fact that Eggs could hold onto his oven and duplicate (and triplicate, quadruplicate...) him too.These two couldn't pull off a murder if it was a Christmas sweater.

   Quarters and Cans were the last pair of numbskulls. Their names came from quatorze and quinze--French for fourteen and fifteen. I spoke a bit of French myself, so I got the pun, but I had a hunch the finesse of their monikers was lost on the common rabble. Quarters fancied himself the brains of the operation and he let Cans tag along because, well, Cans' power was punching people into next week. Literally. He was a big lug with only a few more brain cells than Sawbuck, and he was the muscle if Quarters was the brain. Quarters' temporal oddity had a bit more skill to it: he had a set of coins with everybody's numbers on them. Flipping the coins summoned whoever's number landed face-up. Flipping your own number spelled dead, with a capital D. Clover, of course, was incapable of flipping his own number because dying would be really inconvenient, so he shared a coin with Quarters and kept it with him in case he ever needed back-up. Quarters was an angry, angry man. I wasn't so sure he hadn't done some little coin trick that ended up in Deuce's death.

   There was a double-sided coin of Quarters' nobody ever flipped, and it belonged to Snowman. So called because, well, she's no man. If you've ever seen her, the Eight Ball herself, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Oh, brother. A dame like that you don't see but once in a lifetime. Nobody really knew what her temporal ability was, and most everybody preferred to keep it that way, but she must have had one or the Doctor wouldn't have taken her in. She had what seemed to be a spot for the Midnight Crew, and was rumored to be contractually obligated not to harm any of them. That was because Spades Slick would go postal on the Felt if Snowman ever touched so much as a hair on any one of the Midnight Crew's heads.

   And that was that. 

   My new and revised list of suspects consisted of Clover, Die, Crowbar, Matchsticks, and Cans and Quarters working together. A sorry-looking bunch, to be sure, but at least now I had a couple of the the facts. All I had to do now was make some kind of sense out of them, then round up some more. I doubted it would be easy, but I could always consult the Inspector. In fact, I did consult the Inspector.

   Having narrowly avoided several large piles of books about mob killings, a few cinder blocks with weary-looking potted plants on top, and what may or may not have been at one point a cup of coffee, I sidled out into the hallway, looked around to make sure no one was lurking, and marched up to the Inspector's cast-iron door. Ace and I had a running bet that the Inspector had bought the thing during one of his paranoid episodes. So far, we were right.

   Pickle Inspector answered the door gingerly, as if the doorknob might explode. "Oh," he said, disappointedly. Then again, he said most things disappointedly. I'd learned a long time ago not to be offended. "Hello, Sleuth."

   "Clubs Deuce is dead," I said. I figured it must be roughly equivalent to saying hello. He was going to have to find out anyway, so it'd probably be best to let him know right away.

   "Oh, dear. The little fellow from the Midnight Crew? The explosives expert?"

   "The same."

   "What a pity," said the Inspector. "He was so young."

   "Yeah."

   "I suppose you're going to propose I assist you with the case. I heard you speaking with Diamonds Droog last night."

   "Give a man some privacy," I said, crossing my arms indignantly.

   "Oh. Sorry."

   "Come on, I was kidding." I punched him in the shoulder to establish jocularity. "Lighten up."

   The Inspector tittered and stood awkwardly in his doorway, rubbing his shoulder even though there was no way that little tap had hurt him. The hallway was quieter than Death. Now, I'd met Death a couple times, and he didn't say much at all. Usually he just offered people tea and tried to start games of Monopoly and Trouble that nobody ever wanted to finish. Anyway, that hallway was pretty damned quiet.

   "Can I, uh," I said, rocking back on my heels.

   "Oh!" He fiddled with his jacket buttons. "Yes, of course. Do come in. Sorry."

   His office had to be the absolute opposite of mine. Everything was neat and proper, and there was no butcher paper or yarn or thumbtacks or half-empty coffee cups. If my office was a toddler's finger painting, his was the Mona Lisa. I wondered how he did it, then remember he was the most uptight horse's hind end I'd ever had the pleasure of encountering. He'd been a lawyer once, and he had a penchant for doing everything by the book. I figured I was fine with my office in a shambles if it meant I got to be as carefree as I wanted. It was a trade-off.

   Pickle Inspector sat at his desk. His window shades were drawn against the morning light, but it still streamed through anyway. But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Pickle Inspector is the sun... No, this was no time to quote Shakespeare.

   P.I. took a notebook out of his desk drawer. "If we're going to share the case-- and I do know that's why you're here-- I would appreciate some facts."

   Pacing around his office, I began to relay the few facts I knew to him. He was scribbling furiously even before I began to speak. 

   "First off," I said, "Deuce is dead as a doornail. Secondly, one of the Felt did it, and Clover was near enough to the scene to recover the body. Droog doesn't think he did it. I believe him. Thirdly, the Midnight Crew doesn't seem to be doing anything about it themselves. "

   "Oh, dear."

   "Yeah, tell me about it."

   "I don't see the point in telling you about it when you've just--"

   "It was a rhetorical expression."

   "Well, do pardon me for not understanding."

   I lunged toward his desk. "I'll pardon you alright, you big wimp--"

   "The only thing you need to pardon is your tremendous bad attitude!"

   "Your office is too clean!"

   "You're very impolite!"

   The phone rang, splitting the air with a hearty _brrrrrinnng!_ just as I was about to climb over his desk and throttle him. I sat on the edge of the desk and snorted, allowing all my vitriol towards his obsessive-compulsive cleaning habits to drain off. There was no use snapping at him or maintaining a sour attitude. We had a case to solve. I wanted to kick myself for losing my temper so early in the day.

  Pickle Inspector cleared his throat. "Excuse me." He answered the phone, and when the person on the other end answered him, his face went paler than it usually was. I could barely hear the voice, but if it was who I thought it was, then we were in hot water.

   "Yes," he said. "Yes, he's here." He pursed his lips. "Well, not exactly. That's open to interpretation."

   "What? Who is it? What's going on?" I leaned back and tried to position my ear next to the phone. P.I. made a shooing motion.

   "Yes, I suppose you can speak to him." He handed me the phone and mouthed _good luck_.

   It was just as I suspected: the dame on the blower was no good. I almost dropped the blasted thing when I heard her voice coming out of it. 

   "Hello, Problem Sleuth."

   "Snowman," I hissed. My guts were twisted together tighter than the twin tails of Echidna, the fabled mother of all monsters, of whom Snowman was a daughter if I'd ever seen one. I forced myself to speak, but all the bravado was bunk. My voice was shaking worse than a house made of gelatin in an earthquake. "You're up awfully early."

   "This is no time for joking, Sleuth."

   "Of course." I wanted to reach through the phone line and deck her a good one. Snowman was the most patronizing dame I'd ever had the misfortune of being introduced to. I preferred to stay as far away from her as I could, as often as I could. There was no love lost between us, believe you me. But at the same time, she had a certain magnetism about her that nobody could seem to deny. "I suppose you're calling about Deuce."

   "One of my boys killed him."

   "Yeah-- who?"

   "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it your job to find that out?"

   "Well--"

   "Do me a favor, Sleuth."

 "Name it, sweetheart." I knew as soon as I said it that I probably shouldn't have.

   "Two favors, now."

   "Get on with it."

   "First, don't correct me; I'm not wrong. Second, don't call me sweetheart."

   It was all I could do not to slam the phone down right away. The only thing that kept me from doing that was the fact that I was seriously strapped for information-- and cash. The longer I could keep her on the line, the more chance I had to learn something that might lead me to some kind of breakthrough.

   "Fine. What can you tell me about the case?"

   Snowman took a long pause. I could imagine her laid out languidly on her balcony, basking in the morning sun, taking a long draw off her cigarette in its slender black-ivory holder. Talking on the phone must have been such a chore to a gal like her, so she probably had other things going on in the meantime. Maybe she was playing a lazy game of solitaire, or painting her fingernails, or eating cherries. I wondered briefly if she was the type who could tie a knot in the stem with her tongue. I... I was getting kind of flustered thinking about it. I shook my head to clear it. I couldn't decide if I hated her or had a great big schoolboy crush on her. From what I understood, she had that effect on most people.

   "I found the body propped up against the door to the basement, inside the antechamber," Snowman said dryly. "I was going down to get some wine. The Doctor keeps all the doors to the cellar shut tight, so I had Clover with me to pick the locks."

   "Yeah?" I motioned to P.I. to lean closer to the phone and take notes. He understood what I meant, thankfully. He was a good fella, I supposed, despite his compulsion to be excessively clean and tidy. "Go on."

   "Execution, it seemed to me. An awful mess. Heart missing. Sure as Hell not a suicide, if that's what you're thinking, because nobody can even get in there without--" Snowman exhaled. If we were in person, she would've been blowing her smoke in my face. What a choice bit of calico. "Without Clover to unlock the vault. Whoever killed Clubs was using a borrowed weapon. The room was locked, Sleuth-- I saw it with my own eyes."

   "If you was anybody else, I'd think you were setting up some kind of bogus alibi. But I know you well enough to know you'd never even need one in the first place."

   There was a long pause, as if she were contemplating what I'd said. She seemed satisfied with it, because she barked a short laugh before she sobered right up again. "Clover looked so upset when he saw why I was stopped in the doorway," she said. It was completely incongruous with the laugh she'd just uttered.

   "They had the same birthday," I recalled. "You probably should've sent somebody else to the Morningstar with him."

   "I did what I could."

   I cleared my throat. "Have you received any other information from any of the Midnight Crew? Anything from Boxcars?" Snowman stayed silent. I assumed it meant no. "Did the body appear to have been tampered with aside from the, you know, the missing-- uh, the missing organs?"

   "No. Perfect crime scene."

   That made my job a hundred times harder. "I'll have kittens if somebody tells me there were fairies and unicorns present at the crime scene. God knows it would be just as easy to prove."

   I could almost hear Snowman smiling. "Best of luck, Problem Sleuth." I heard her phone click against its receiver and I swore. The Inspector looked embarrassed. That was two times in as many days someone had hung up on me. I wouldn't let it happen again.

   "A l-locked room murder," the Inspector stammered. "Sleuth, I don't know-- we have almost nothing to go on. We're already making so many assumptions--"

   "We're taking the case," I said. "No discussion. Spades Slick is paying us."

   "That's dirty money!"

   "It's money." There was no arguing with that; P.I. had as much of a sweet spot for modest opulence as I did. He looked supremely conflicted, but eventually sighed and conceded that I was right. I told him I'd known this for a while and I was glad he was finally seeing the light. He told me to get out of his office. I grabbed his notebook and absconded like the wind.

   I returned to my pigsty of an office with a newfound appreciation for simple, old-fashioned murders. Give me a hit-and-run auto accident or a ritual sacrifice to the eerie gods that supposedly lived in the outer ring of the universe any day, but a locked-room that definitely wasn't a suicide? I'd rather pull my own teeth with no anesthetic. There were a thousand different ways that a thing like this could occur, but in a place as tight as Felt Manor, I knew I had to start shaving with Occam's razor-- and fast. Droog hadn't given me a time frame, but after a while the case would go colder than his heart. I had to get things done or there wouldn't be any things to do.

   With the new information Snowman had given me, I figured I'd better start trying to do the borders of the jigsaw puzzle. It was a puzzle that said "for ages three to five", and I was a very determined four-year-old.

   The facts were these: someone had killed Clubs Deuce in a room that could only be opened with something not much different than magic. No one had witnessed the crime except the victim and the perpetrator, or perpetrators, and no one knew when it had even occurred. I doubted that was even relevant, since any of the Felt could have taken him to another timeline and done the deed. It was a real headache. I resolved never to deal with another temporally illogical case again.

   I scuttled back to my office and tried to put more theories together. I mostly came up with nothing.


	3. A New Pair of Shoes

   Who knew it was so easy to become a celebrity? All you do is take one little case and suddenly the mayor himself shows up at your door. It was the last thing I was expecting-- short of actually solving the case anytime soon.

   There were four staccato knocks. "James Elroy? This is the mayor. Please open up." 

   Well, that was me-- James Elroy. I figured I'd better open the door. I kicked my coloring-book-gone-mad diagram of suspects behind my desk and hastily ripped down most of the papers tacked to the wall. It wouldn't do to have the mayor think I was some kind of crazy person... but he probably already thought that. Even so, I only had one face and I intended to save most of it if at all possible.

   "Just half a second, sir," I called, stuffing yarn and an inordinately small number of thumbtacks (Where were they going? That was the real mystery here) into my desk drawers. I had no idea how this thing had even stayed up on the wall. Must have been some kind of magic in the few thumbtacks I had. Now wasn't the time to check them out, though.

   I opened the door and was almost knocked off my feet with surprise at how short the mayor was. I'd only met him in person twice, and I was a lot younger then-- elementary school age. He seemed as tall as a skyscraper back then, but now I was the one dwarfing him. It's strange how things work out like that. You have a childhood idol and all of a sudden they're smaller than you were when you were a child. Maybe it spoke to how childhood idols are things you should put away when you stop _being_ a child. Or maybe the guy was just awfully shrimpy.

   But I didn't have time to muse on my childhood. My inner child was nothing but a distraction. It was time to break out the metaphorical big guns. I could afford to be lippy with Snowman, but there was no going back with the mayor. So I started real polite. 

   "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

   "I'm going to have to ask you to drop this newest case of yours, Mr. Elroy."

   "What?!" I couldn't help exclaiming-- he'd really caught me off guard. I knew gang activity was something I was supposed to keep my nose well away from, but I had no idea how he'd found out so quickly. Unless... What if my phone had been bugged? What if the waitress at the 3AM had been some kind of municipal spy? Had Droog set me up? If so, how had he managed to convince Snowman to corroborate his story? My mind was boiling over with so many questions that I hardly noticed the mayor when he spoke again.

   "You're aware of the municipal policy regarding--" He cleared his throat. "Regarding the Midnight Crew." The way he said it sounded like he'd choked on some particularly nasty insect.

   "Sir, I'm not being reimbursed. This is a favor to-- to the Crew. Deuce was a close friend of mine back in grade school." I was this close to having a doctorate in making shit up on the spot, and I considered lying to the mayor my dissertation. Usually my little inventions were just convincing enough to shake any inquirers off my tail. I hoped this story would satisfy the mayor.

   "I thought detectives weren't allowed to take cases that interested them personally."

   "I, uh-- I believe that's prosecuting attorneys."

   "Even so. Ought to be a law." The mayor sighed, shaking his bald little head. "James, I realize how important this is to you, so I'm willing to make an exception. Just this once. Find out who killed Clubs Deuce and then never deal with the Midnight Crew again-- under any circumstances. Am I understood?"

   "Yes, sir." I did my best impression of a kid who'd been caught by Ma with his hand in the cookie jar.

   How humiliating. At least he hadn't discovered my yarn map.

   "I admire that mural, incidentally. What a lovely display of cultural harmony." The mayor tipped his hat. "Good-bye."

   "Good-bye, sir."

   As soon as his stubby hind end was out of my office, the first thing I did was I stuck my tongue out and gave him a Bronx cheer. What a buzzkill. I was supportive of democracy in whatever form she may take, but a herd of wild horses couldn't convince me that the mayor wasn't sent straight from Hell to throw as many stumbling blocks at me as possible. I sighed. This threw a wrench right in the middle of things.

   The second thing I did was to throw my phone straight out the window. I considered warning any pedestrians who might have been ambling along down there, but I decided it wasn't worth it. The phone hit the pavement with a satisfying crunch. I hoped it had landed right on the mayor's bald old head.

   I was telephoneless. Nobody could contact me unless they were standing right in front of me, just the way God intended. It was then that I realized that I also couldn't make outgoing calls, which might have proved to be incredibly inconvenient had I not had a brilliant idea.

   Our office building was once an old apartment building; as such, there were dumbwaiters for carrying food and other sundry items (read: bathtub gin) to the upper floors and penthouse. It just so happened that my office was on the end of the hallway, right next to one of the dumbwaiter's stops.

   I had a _plan_.

   I peered out into the hallway to be sure the mayor was gone, then sneaked over to P.I.'s office. I banged on the door, which probably undid any sense of stealth I had acquired from the sneaking.

   "I'm in a call!" came the reply. "Please come back later!"

   "Bushwa!" I replied, singsong. "This is important!"

   A few seconds passed, then the door swung open. "I was speaking with Ethel, Sleuth," the Inspector said, disappointedly.

   "Sorry. Hey, listen, I need you to throw your phone out the window."

   "Pardon?" He blinked, nonplussed. "Out the window?"

   "Yeah. It's got a bug in it. Don't know why, don't know how-- but somebody bugged our phones."

   "Oh, dear."

   "I don't think they got Ace's, though. So I'm going to go up and put it in the dumbwaiter so we can bring it down here and use it."

   "Why not just bring it downstairs with you?"

   That honestly hadn't occurred to me, but I couldn't let him know that. I had to save the few shreds of professional dignity I had left after the mayor's little visit. "Because he'd bust an artery if he knew we'd been going through his things. We have to have a way to get it back up there quickly in case he turns up out of the blue."

   The Inspector bought it, however reluctantly, and went back inside his office. I faintly heard the phone's bell jingle as he unplugged it, and I imagined I could hear it shatter on the street below. He emerged about a minute later with a ring of keys. "Let's commit burglary, eh?"

   Ace's office was, predictably, locked. There was a sheet of taped on the door--"Don't leave anything. I'll be gone for a while. --A.D." Any other schmuck would have interpreted this as an instruction to the milkman, or perhaps to other less wholesome service providers, but P.I. and I knew that it meant we weren't supposed to go looking for him. I hoped his existential crisis was going well, wherever he was.

   The Inspector jangled his keys. "I don't know which one goes to his door," he admitted, sheepishly.

   "Try 'em all," I said, leaning wearily against the wall. If I'd tried to take the keys, he probably would've taken them right back. It was best to just let him take his sweet time and be as precise as possible.

   The Inspector's hands were shaking badly as he selected the first key from the ring. I didn't know how he'd gotten a janitor's keyring, and I didn't know if I wanted to know. He wasn't the type to assault random members of staff to gain access to normally out-of-bounds areas of the building-- that duty usually fell to Ace or me. Maybe Ace had given it to him: he couldn't have only ever stolen one keyring, after all. There had to be duplicates.

   I considered asking the Inspector where the keys had come from, but he was deep in concentration. It was doubtful I could've gotten his attention if I'd dressed in drag and danced the Charleston. Honestly, that probably would have made him focus on _not_ paying attention to me, what with his delicate sensibilities and all.

   "Well?"

   He gave me a very annoyed look. "Don't rush me, Sleuth." He continued on at a pace comparable to that of a slug, snail, two-toed sloth, slime mold, or giant land tortoise. Really, I could've gone on with that list all day. His speed rivaled that of continental drift or a glacier. I wanted to snatch the keys away and scream in frustration, but that would only have made him move more slowly. It was a no-win situation.

   The first five keys he tried didn't fit, but we finally struck gold with the sixth. It slid into the keyhole like an oiled pig through a frustrated farmer's hands, and the door swung open just as smoothly. The hinges didn't even creak. Normally I would've been suspicious, but Ace hadn't been gone too long. Probably he'd greased the hinges to Hell and back before he left.

   We stood there in the doorway for a long moment, contemplating what we were about to do. Ace would never break into either of our offices. But dire times called for dire measures. I hoped the old man would understand when he finally returned to the City from wherever he was.

   Ace's office was the lovechild of P.I.'s office and mine. The desk was immaculate, but the walls were covered in half-coherent notes of all kinds. It appeared as though he had written directly on the paint during one of more drunken interludes. There was no disturbing mural, thank God.

   "There it is," Pickle Inspector whispered hoarsely, pointing to the white telephone on the edge of the desk.

   It seemed almost too easy; the Ace I knew would have put some kind of trap around here somewhere. He was an ox-- bullheaded, but stronger than Atlas. I halfway expected a giant metal cage to fall from the ceiling and trap us until we wasted away to nothing. He could've taken away something like that, but it was unlikely that an intruder could've. Another possibility was a giant flamethrower. I was keeping my options open. It was for this reason that I edged around his desk carefully and almost as glacially as P.I. had been moving only minutes ago.

   Confident that we weren't about to be interred or charred to cinders, I grabbed the phone gingerly, ready to drop it should it have set off some alarm or booby trap. Thankfully, there was nothing; no cages, flamethrowers, or bottomless pits in the floor. I couldn't help breathing a deep sigh of relief. It was like I was some kind of junior bank robber pulling off his first ever successful heist. Look, Ma, I did it!

   "Let's go-- quickly, now!" The Inspector hurried me out the door, which he pulled shut and locked. The phone's extension cord fit neatly through the gap under the door; I made sure it hugged the wall. Wouldn't want anybody to trip (unless it was they mayor. I was still kind of bitter.) I had no idea why the phone had such a long cord, but I attributed it to Ace's habit of picking it up and pacing around when he was in a call. Perhaps he'd clotheslined himself with that cord enough times that it finally occurred to him to get a longer one.

   The phone fit in the dumbwaiter perfectly. I gave a thumbs up, slid the little door closed, and hightailed it down the stairs with P.I. in tow. 

   "That was kind of exhilarating," he said, taking the stairs two at a time. I doubted he had ever done that before in his life-- both breaking and entering and taking the stairs double. He was a bit of a milquetoast. I'd seen mice less timid that he was.

   As we neared the bottom of the stairwell, I tried to resist the urge to slide down the banister. 

   "All in a day's work, pal." I failed to resist the urge.

   "How interesting." He rocked back on his heels. "Will we have to do that again soon?"

   "Hopefully, no," I said, dismounting the banister. "We should be able to just give Ace his phone back, and hope to high heaven he understands why we pinched it in the first place."

   Pickle Inspector smiled. He went over to the dumbwaiter and turned the crank on the wall to make it descend to its proper position. When it finally arrived, the phone was ringing.

    "Oh, for Christ's sake," I began. "You answer it; it might actually be bugged."

   "You weren't sure? We may have gone through all that for nothing?"

   "Well, yeah, but--"

   "Problem Sleuth, how in the world have you managed to stay alive this long?"

   "Not a clue, guy," I said, amicably. "Now answer the damn phone."

   To his credit, he did so without more complaint that a weary sigh. 

    "Hello? No, I'm afraid he can't come to the phone right now. Yes, I'm sorry, but you'll have to call back another time. Very sorry. Good-bye."

   I looked at him inquisitively.

   "An art supply company inquiring about the cancellation of Ace's order of several different strippers."

   "Insp--"

   "Paint strippers!" the Inspector exclaimed, clapping his hands to his face. "Oh, my goodness, Sleuth-- paint strippers! For removing paint from furniture and walls!"

   I almost exploded. I was doubled over, hooting with laughter, slapping my knees, the whole shebang. Was that the only thing this phone was capable of doing? Answering calls about paint supplies and making the Inspector say the word 'stripper' and nearly have an aneurysm from backpedaling so hard? If so, I was going to be in good spirits for the rest of however long this case took. If not, this was a welcome distraction anyway.

   The Inspector gave a little giggle. "Yes, yes, it's all very good. I suppose I'm allowed a little loosening up today."

   "I'm going to call someplace innocuous," I said when I had wiped the tears from my eyes. "See if I don't get a C&D letter."

   "Why would you get a notice to cease and desist?"

   "Oh, right. Forgot to tell you. The mayor popped in for a little while just now, told me to drop the case or else."

   "Oh, my. What did you tell him?"

   "Told him Deuce and I were old pals; that I was doing the Crew a favor. He bought it hook, line, and sinker. He bought the whole fishing rod, in fact."

   "That's good, I suppose." He smiled stiffly. "You always were very adept at bending the truth a little."

   "I'm a detective by nature, man. Sometimes I have to skirt the line between legal and illegal."

   I dialed the number to my favorite prank call locale, Madame Murel's. Come to think of it, that was probably how I ended up with the disturbing celebratory painting of cultural harmony in the first place: I'd gotten a little too happy with the rotgut one night and accidentally placed a massive, ridiculous order. That seemed like the most likely explanation, because I would never have bought that thing sober. There: another mystery solved.

   "Hello?" I said, when the other end of the line picked up. "Yes, please direct me to Madame Murel's. ...Yes, this is Problem Sleuth. Yes, I know this is very juvenile and potentially illegal. Look, just connect the call, sweetheart. --Hello? Yes, I was wondering about something, Madame... Well, have you got Prince Albert in a can?"

   "Sleuth! How cliché!"

   "Yes? Well, you'd better let him out," I snickered. The Madame's roar of _SLEUTH!_ could probably be heard halfway down the hall, but I didn't care. It was worth it. She was always good for a prank call every once in a while. I slammed the phone down; finally, I had hung up on someone. What a victory! I had half a mind to go out and celebrate. In fact...

   "That was moronic-- sophomoric-- ridiculous!." The Inspector giggled. "Prince Albert in a can. How quaint."

   "I walk on the wild side, Ellery," I said. "Oh, wait, you're on duty. I walk on the wild side, Inspector."

   The Inspector gasped suddenly. "Oh, I just remembered. I've got some financial records to balance. I'll catch up with you later."

   "Alright. See you."

   There I was again, alone in the hallway. I chuckled to myself. Paint strippers. Maybe old Ellery was alright, after all. For a lawyer, anyhow.

   This was where I put into motion my plan to celebrate the little bit of good fortune we'd been afforded so far. With things going as well as they were all of a sudden, I figured I could afford to take a bit of a vacation from all the backbreaking work I'd been doing. I lingered around the telephone until Pickle Inspector disappeared down the hallway, then allowed myself a nefarious chortle. I knew exactly what I was going to do.

   "Hello? ...Yes, this is Problem Sleuth. Yes, again. Helen, please. Thank you. --Hey, sweetheart. I've got a bit of time off. Want to do lunch?"

   Helen-- fair Helen. Helen was the loveliest dame in the whole world, and I was the luckiest man to have her. She could get hysterical at times, but it was nothing I couldn't handle. She was a bearcat, but oh, so worth it.

   I'd met her during the Kingpin debacle-- it must have been almost three years ago, now. She gave me a call one day saying she was trapped in her apartment. I knew how that felt: I'd accidentally left my keys outside the office more times than I cared to admit. I gave her the number for a locksmith I was on very good terms with, and she personally visited my office to thank me. We've been going steady ever since. I hadn't seen too much of her since my last few cases, so I felt I had to make it up to her a little bit.

   Helen was sharp as a tack, a real fast-talker. She could chitchat her way into and out of any place in the city, something I myself was still only mediocre at.

   "Why, sure, James. Where at?" She sounded a little distracted, as though I'd interrupted her in the middle of something.

   "I'm on duty, sweetheart, it's Sleuth. And I was thinking the Sam & Ella Café."

   Helen giggled. "Of course. That sounds lovely. Am I the Hysterical Dame, then?"

   "Ab-so-lute-ly," I said. "Now, slow down, sweetheart, I can't understand a word you're sayin'. Miss, if you'll only calm down--"

   "Oh, knock it off. I'll be there in ten. Wait for me out front."

   "Love you, toots."

   "Bye, sugar."

   There was nothing quite so fun as taking time off work, and especially to spend it elsewhere. That Hysterical Dame may have been a handful, but I was a monkey's third cousin if she wasn't my favorite client.

   I met her downstairs in ten minutes, just like she asked. She was one of the few people I'd promised myself I'd never be late for. She was dressed just about to the nines, sporting a slinky red dress and heels that were probably qualifiable as lethal weapons.

   "You look positively illegal," I said. I was definitely on the high end of impressed. "Are you sure there's no public indecency law banning that dress?"

   She draped herself over me like a dumb Dora trying to play-act at fainting. I didn't know whether to find it impressive or concerning: she was a very convincing actress. "Oh, sugar, you could prove I didn't do anything wrong, couldn't you?"

   I grinned. "For you, sweetheart, I could prove the sun orbits the Earth."

   "Oh, Sleuth-- my hero." Helen smiled. She had gorgeous teeth, and bright red lips, and-- everything about her was just beautiful. I felt guilty, not having seen her too much the past few weeks. "Let's get a move on, tiger."

   Neither of us had a functioning automobile, so we had to hoof it to the café. I had no idea how she did it in those deathtrap shoes-- as long as I live I'll never understand how dames can stand in those damn things, let alone walk in 'em. My only theory was that she had sold a portion of her soul to some dark god in exchange for impeccable balance and superior arch support.

   I wanted to tell her about the case, but I didn't really like mixing business and pleasure. Unless it was just James and Helen, just Problem Sleuth and his Hysterical Dame of a client... well, work and pleasure stayed well away from each other. Besides, I was supposed to be taking a break. I figured it wouldn't hurt to just relax for a while.

   We began to ankle down the sidewalk. It was a lovely day, the kind of day that sometimes make me want to hang up my hat and gun and find some other way to occupy my time. I was married to the job, though; something about it was just inescapable. In a pinch, I probably would've picked the job over Helen, if I was sure I could end up with both of them again.

   "Ace called me last night," Helen said, out of the blue. "Around eleven."

   I almost walked right out into the street before I caught myself and realized what she'd said.

   "Yeah?" I was intrigued. I didn't even know Ace knew Helen's name, let alone how to talk to her. Or any woman, for that matter. Usually he just called her "that broad of Sleuth's"-- and occasionally he called her some things I won't repeat. Suffice to say that those occasions usually ended up with P.I. trying to pull me off of Ace before I could punch his stupid mug in.

   "Yeah. He tried getting ahold of you and Ellery and even Ethel but he couldn't get anybody. So I guess I was his last resort." She smiled good-naturedly and gave a little giggle.

   Now, that was strange. I wondered if it didn't have anything to do with the case. If everything had been timed perfectly, I would have been on the phone with Droog and Ellery would have been playing board games with Ethel. I knew for a fact that my line was the secure type that operators couldn't cut in on to inform you of another call, but I had no idea why Ace hadn't been able to reach the Inspector.

   Unless... "Oh, my God." What if the bug had been placed on my phone just before Droog called, and on Ellery's phone during that call? This line of reasoning relied on far too much coincidence for my tastes, but everybody has to eat their least favorite food once in a while. That had to have been what happened. Unless some other more likely scenario presented itself, and soon, I would have to believe this one.

   "What? What is it?"

   ...There went my resolution not to tell her about the case. I couldn't lie to her. "Something about a new case I got. Last night around eleven I was on the phone, and this morning the mayor seemed to know what I was talking about. He just left a while before I called you. So I think my phone was tapped."

   "And?"

   "Well, maybe they tapped it before the call, and that was why Ace couldn't reach me. And then they tapped Ellery's, so nothing could get through then either."

   "Oh, my God."

   "Yeah."

   "No, I mean, oh my God, what is wrong with you! That's too many coincidences." She swung her handbag at me playfully and I ducked it. God knew it must have weighed ten pounds-- I didn't want to be on the receiving end when it finally collided with something for real. "You big goof."

   "Easy, toots! All I'm saying is it's the best lead I've got for now."

   "Yeah, yeah. It's strange, though."

   "What'd you and Ace talk about?" I asked. I wanted to get off the subject of coincidences. it was kind of a sore spot to be reminded that I had next to nothing to go on for this case.

   "Things," Helen said. "He wanted to ask you about something that happened earlier yesterday... God, what was it?" She laughed. "I forget. Anyway, he said he wanted to talk to you, I told him you was probably busy, and we made small talk for a little bit."

   Oh, my God. Things were coming together in ways I just didn't want to think about. As much as I hated to ask Ace for help with anything, he might know something about the case if he was that desperate to talk to anyone connected with Team Sleuth. "Helen--did he give you any information about where he is? He told Ellery and me not to go looking for him, but he never told you not to."

   "Yeah, he said he was over in-- uh, in some miners' town someplace."

   "Helen!" I stopped walking and threw my arms in the air, exasperated. "Didn't you take notes?"

   She crossed her arms and performed the legendary indignant snort. "We're not all detectives, James."

   I bit my tongue and started walking again, my footsteps tapping out an angry drumbeat. "I know."

   "What the Hell is that supposed to mean?"

   "Nothing! Nothing, okay, I was just saying-- it would've been helpful if you'd had the forethought to take notes. That's all."

   "James," she said. Her voice was a warning, low and annoyed. "You are digging yourself a big damn hole, and it don't look like you got any kind of shovel. Now you tell me what on Earth you're trying to say here."

   "Fine! I'm saying I can't see you during this case, alright, Droog'll slaughter me if I don't--"

   "Oh, I should've known."

   "Yeah? And what's _that_ supposed to mean?" I knew what she was going to say before she said it-- she was tired of playing second fiddle to my cases. To Droog, when he cared to show up. She always showed her frustration in little ways and then blew up when we were alone, like a bunch of small earthquakes leading up to a big one. The little tremors had been happening for a while now-- swinging her purse more often than normal, getting annoyed at smaller and smaller inconveniences. Making plans with Ethel and dropping everything when I called her. I knew to expect a giant explosion, and soon.

   "It's all about Droog and the boys, isn't it? You never spend time with me anymore, James, not since a couple months after Kingpin-- that's years now. It's just Ethel and me, anymore. You've got Team Sleuth on a leash and you're on Droog's damn leash day and night. What's so important about him that me and you and Ellery and Ethel can't all spend time together anymore?"

   I froze. What _was_ so important about Droog? We were enemies. For all intents and purposes, Helen was right. There should've been nothing preventing me from spending time with her and all my friends. For the first time in a while, I had no idea what to say.

   Helen looked like somebody'd just slapped her, like she wanted to cry. She took off her high heels and flung them into the street. Her voice was breaking. "James?"

   "Helen--"

   "That can just be the way it is after you solve this case, too," she spat, and stalked off down the sidewalk furiously, barefoot. Her legs looked like two cats fighting in a burlap sack. "If Droog is so damned important," she called over her shoulder, "why don't you just take him to lunch instead!"

   I stood there, speechless. Somewhere, deep down, I knew that it was all my fault, that I should run after, bare my heart, and apologize... but somewhere else, a small part of me was whispering sweetly that now I had all the free time I needed to work on the case. Wasn't justice, after all, the most important thing to preserve?

   I told my conscience to shut its trap and set my course for the 3AM.


	4. Lucky Me

   I plodded along in silence like a cow deep in thought. When I got there, the place was well-populated for it being so early in the day-- it was only about one-thirty, maybe two. I wondered what was going on, but I didn't let it phase me too much. I crossed around behind the bar and descended the rickety wrought-iron staircase to the Morningstar-- the Midnight Crew's underground lair. There had to be a door to the actual Underground in there somewhere-- the city beneath Midnight City that nobody talked about in polite company. It wasn't relevant, though. What was relevant was the place itself. 

   I'd only been to the Morningstar once or twice, and never voluntarily. It functioned as a sort of social club for the more hard-boiled types that visited such legitimate establishments as the Three In The Morning. The back rooms were the rooms where the most illegal things took place. I'd only been back there once, and that _had_ been voluntary, despite my initially being forced into the Star. This wasn't the time to think about that, though. 

   I stood at the bottom of the stairs for a long time before I realized I hadn't brought a weapon. To my credit, I didn't usually carry on dates. I cursed myself out loud for not having brought any sort of iron with me, regardless, then got it over with and knocked on the badly rusted door. It was like pulling off an adhesive bandage. I may have trusted Droog-- and to some extent, Slick and Boxcars-- not to fill me with hot lead, but the Morningstar's other patrons weren't so trustworthy. Maybe I was lucky that the place didn't officially open its doors until the sun went down. Still, having my old .45, the Arbiter, with me would have made this a little more bearable. 

   The little window in the door slid open to reveal an angry-looking pair of peepers. Boxcars was the bouncer, and I doubted I was terribly welcome here. He grunted and slammed the window shut. I started to walk away when the door swung open. 

   "What ya waitin' for, ya stupid blockhead?" A customary Boxcars greeting, from what little I knew of the man. "Get inside before yer dumb-lookin' face freezes that way." 

   I gave a tiny grin that was probably invisible to anyone who wasn't looking for it. I may have hated them all with every fiber of my being, or at least most of the fibers of my being, but at least they were welcoming. 

   The Morningstar was almost empty, just like I thought it would be. Stitch, number nine of the Felt, was leaning against the bar, talking to a man I didn't recognize. The new kid must have been the replacement bartender for... well, for Clubs Deuce. I couldn't help feeling more and more upset about the kid's death the more I considered how much he must have thought of the Crew as a family. I knew my boys would have been devastated if I ever... 

   "Thought I told you not to come down here," Diamonds Droog said, resting a heavy, threatening hand on my shoulder. I hadn't seen him sidle up to me, so I almost jumped out of my skin. I flung his hand away and brushed myself down out of reflex. He gave me the creepy-crawlies when he did things like that. In my defense, he was behind me and the place had the kind of air about it that required dimmer-than-normal lighting. 

   "Helen dumped me," I blurted, arms crossed defensively. I hoped he wouldn't read into my body language. He probably did anyway. 

   "So throw a party. Broad wasn't good enough for you anyway," he said. That was all I was likely to get in the way of consolation. He was walking toward the pool table. I hoped it was to play an actual game of billiards and not to beat me down with a cue stick. "Why should I care." 

   "I don't know. She more or less told me I was a worthless layabout and I should just join the Midnight Crew if I was going to treat her so bad." She hadn't actually said any of that, of course, but I wanted to see what it would take to make Droog show any kind of sympathy for his fellow man. A social experiment. 

   "I don't give a rat's flying ass." 

   "Boss, look who come in," Boxcars shouted, summoning Slick from the back rooms. Great. Just what I needed. 

   Spades Slick was a tiny, angry man with dark olive skin, like the rest of the Crew except for Droog, who somehow maintained an almost ethereally pale complexion. His face was so leathery and creased that he looked twenty years older than he actually was. He tried to keep a beard, but it mostly stayed stubble on his badly-scarred face. His eyes-- or eye, really; he wore an eye patch over one of them-- were dark and oily-looking. The puckered edge of a scar that hadn't healed right peeked out from under the patch. He had a prosthetic arm; he'd lost the real one in a fight with Snowman, or so I'd heard. He was walking with a cane that looked like it might have belonged to Doc Scratch at some point. I wondered vaguely how he'd come by it; I was impressed and terrified all at once. 

   He was scarier than Ace on a hot sauce binge and the a inspector on a cleaning kick combined. To put it simply, Spades Slick was not a nice man. 

   "Afternoon," I squeaked. So much for acting casual. Droog smirked, chalking his cue. His face was one big _I_ told _you not to come down here_. 

   "What in Hell is he doing here?" Slick asked Droog, ignoring me completely. "Get him out. Boxcars, get him out of here." 

   "He's helping us out," Droog said, deadpan. He was leaning on the pool table. "Unless you _want_ Deuce to go unavenged." 

   Slick looked like he was thinking very deeply about it. "Don't let him hang around too long," he grumbled, and limped back to where he'd come, resting heavily on his purloined cane. 

   "You owe me," Droog said. Boxcars just glared at me threateningly before ambling over to the bar to harass Stitch and the bartender. 

   "Yeah. Yeah, I do. Thanks." 

   He racked up the balls and gestured toward the cue stand. "Guest breaks," he said, handing me the cue ball. "House rules." 

   "Fine by me." I was no crack shot, but I could hold my own. I had a feeling, though, that I was going to get my hind end soundly beaten by Droog; he was a cue stick genius. I'd seen him shoot pool on his own just to see how quickly he could finish. It was impressive. His record was just under three minutes. 

   I placed the cue ball on the appropriate mark on the table and lined up my shot. I offered a quick prayer to whatever god would listen that I wouldn't scratch until at least the five ball, then drew back and broke the rack with a pleasantly loud _crack_. 

   "Nice," Droog said. 

   "Thanks." I was mildly suspicious. It wasn't like him at all to offer congratulations, especially to me. That was one of the highest forms of praise you could hope to get from Diamonds Droog-- "nice", or "not bad", or "alright". 

   The cue ball ricocheted off the far end of the table, scattering the other balls like debris from an explosion, and ended up roughly where I'd shot from in the first place. I hadn't pocketed anything, but at least I hadn't scratched either. 

   Droog smirked and lined up his shot. He hit the cue ball like a gunshot and promptly pocketed the nine ball. I saw Stitch flinch out of the corner of my eye. Knowing Droog's twisted sense of humor, he'd done it on purpose. 

   "Looks like I'm solids," I said with a half-laugh. My heart was jammed smack in the middle of my throat; I could hardly talk. Droog was honestly intimidating when he played pool. He was a big, sleek tiger and I was a terrified explorer trying to remember if it was lions or tigers that couldn't climb trees. 

   We played through the whole game, and I somehow miraculously managed not to pocket the eight ball or scratch the cue. I made a mental note to make a sacrifice to the elder god of Not Being Completely Eggs At Pool. I spent the whole game in complete jaw-dropped awe at how quick and accurate Droog was. If he was this good at pool, he must have been one Hell of a sharpshooter with a rifle. I'd only seen him shoot a firearm one time, and mostly I tried to forget how little regard he had for human life if it got in front of him when he was doing something important. He never took me sniping with him again after that. 

   It was down to brass tacks-- me, Droog, and the eight ball-- when another eight ball walked in. I almost dropped my cue. Boxcars wasn't even there to open the heavy door, but it swung open anyway. The sunshine streaming in from outside silhouetted her. She had a body like an hourglass and a mind keen as the business end of a well-cared-for sword. 

   Snowman lit a cigarette and came inside. "Diamonds," she said, practically melting all over the pool table, "pour me something, would you? I don't like your new bartender." She paused, picked up the eight ball, regarded it carefully, then set it back down. "Got here just in time. Corner pocket," she nearly purred. She nudged the ball with her long, slender forefinger, and it fell neatly into the pocket she'd called. 

   I wondered who won the game, or if this meant it was a draw. I decided not to risk asking. 

   Droog looked like he wanted to backhand her, but he settled for slamming his cue stick back in its place in the rack. He went to the bar, shoved the barman out of the way, and poured the dame a vodka. I had a feeling he wasn't going to bring it to her... not unless she asked, anyway. Stitch was doing his level best not to bust a gut. I was having a hard time not laughing myself. She had him whipped, as they say in the vernacular. 

   "Finally off 'ouse arrest, miss?" Stitch asked. "Or 'ave you sneaked out the same as me?" 

   "Depends. Does knocking the sharks out count as sneaking?" She was referring to Trace and Fin, the Felt's very own loan sharks. I supposed they could also be counted as card sharks, the way they played the poker table. Either way, they were both stupid and aggressive-- characteristic of the king of the sea. 

   "No. Fin'll figure out you left and probably trail you straight here." 

   "I beaned him with Crowbar's forget-me stick," Snowman said simply. She referred to Crowbar's signature weapon: a crowbar that could negate temporal anomalies. Funny; it was, in itself, a temporal anomaly. "He'll be out of commission for a few hours,I hope." 

   "Close enough, then," Stitch conceded. He spun his barstool around and leaned on the bar. "Hey, Droogie, pour me somethin' too." 

   "Sulfuric acid," Droog said, coolly. "All that's on the menu for you, you traitor." 

   "Oh, lay off, Droogie, we're best pals, ain't we?" 

   "If 'pals' means I'd fill you with holes if we wasn't on neutral territory now, certainly. Take a single step into the back rooms, you're a dead man." 

   Snowman pursed her lips, thinking carefully. Then: "Leave him be, Diamonds, and bring me my vodka." 

   Droog grudgingly left the bar and returned to a Snowman with the glass in hand. I could tell he wanted to throw it on her and set her on fire. He wouldn't have risked bringing Matchsticks to the scene through starting a fire that served as a temporal gate, though. That was all he needed, an enemy who wasn't so respectful of the neutral ground agreement. Matchsticks would've torn him apart and put him inside a volcano in the middle of the ocean somewhere, and that was just to start with. 

   I figured I'd better do something to lighten the tension. "Probably not the best idea to ask for a drink, myself, is it," I said. Snowman smirked. 

   Droog glared. "Pour it your damn self; you know what's back there." 

   "Hey, now, lighten up; I was only joking." 

   "He was only joking, Diamonds." 

   "Suddenly you're best pals," Droog said, bitterly. He turned to Snowman. "I'll go get Slick." 

   "Thank you, Diamonds." 

   Droog gave her a long, disconcerted glare. I could tell she didn't thank anybody often, least of all him. He probably thought she was trying to do him one better than he'd done her by bringing the vodka. She was the type of dame who liked to keep people in her debt. 

   Droog flung open the door to the back rooms with enough force to cause it to slam into the wall and dent the plaster. "Snowman's in," he said. 

   I'd never seen two people who hated each other more than Spades Slick and Snowman. Every little movement they made was so full of hatred for each other that I felt like somebody might combust at any moment. It was beautiful and horrible all at once. 

   A long, long time ago, Snowman had apparently been the queen of a place way far away from here. Or the Madam, some say. Slick, along with the rest of the Midnight Crew except for Clubs Deuce, who was still in grade school, had been her bodyguards. Slick organized a coup d'état and had her overthrown-- that is, he squealed to the police about how her establishment was hiring minors-- how Snow herself was barely eighteen-- how the place was selling illegal substances, the whole shebang. And so she was arrested, bounced around foster homes, and Slick turned the place around. Or tried to, anyway. What he'd failed to plan for was that he wasn't fit to rule the "kingdom" either. Within a year, all its inhabitants had either died or moved away to hide from the cops. 

   Snowman got revenge. Oh, did she ever get revenge. She lived in exile in the Underground for a while, then Doc Scratch found her and took her under his wing. When Slick built a new city to start over, she followed him and resolved to completely ruin his life. She's the reason he wears an eyepatch and only has one arm. Or so I'd heard, anyway. 

   I don't blame the broad. Slick ruined her utterly, and she did what she could to get back at him. I had the feeling she'd never think it was enough. 

   "Well!" Slick slammed his metal hand on the edge of the table, too hard. I could tell he'd been interrupted at whatever he'd been doing in the back. His face twisted up into a sneer, as if he couldn't believe Droog would deign to bring her in here. Maybe I was missing something, but I could almost hear the argument they'd had last time she was in here. "Look what the fucking cat dragged in. " 

   "Slick," Droog warned. 

   "Hello, Spades," Snowman said. She was legitimately reclining on the pool table. I cringed, hoping it wouldn't warp. It was a good-quality affair, made of deep red felt and smooth black granite. 

   "Get the Hell off the pool table, you tremendous harlot." 

   "I think not." 

   "I think _so_ or I swear to God I'll make 'em look for you with a Geiger counter." 

   Snowman grinned and took a drag on her cigarette; I followed the dark line of its holder to her emerald-painted lips. God, she had beautiful lips. She had beautiful everything, if I was to be the judge. I hated to say it, but if she weren't so unbelievably cruel, she'd be prettier than Helen. I doubted it would be too wise to give her a good long look, though. Slick's temper was legendary. It was only on Droog's good word that I had managed to stick around at the Morningstar for so long anyway. I figured I'd better be on my best behavior, like a kid in a museum. Look, but don't touch. Or in my case, look, but be damn careful about how you do it. 

   "That's a new one. Did Eggs teach you that?" That was a dig at Slick's less-than-average conversational intelligence. He may have been a quick shot when it came to planning a heist, but he couldn't converse his way out of a damp paper bag. 

   Droog tapped me on the shoulder. I almost shed my skin again. "Give a man some warning when you're going to scare him out of his pants for the second time in two hours!" I whispered harshly. 

   He gave it some sarcastic consideration before finally deciding, "No." 

   I slapped his hand away and continued watching the unfolding hate-flirtation in front of me. 

   "Very cute. Did you learn that one from your little boy friend Crowbar?" 

   "No," Snowman said patronizingly, her voice honey-sweet and slow. "I came up with that one when you ditched me at the Siren last week." She slid off the pool table and patted Slick on the cheek; he slapped her hand away much in the same way I'd just done to Droog. I was inwardly horrified for a moment. Did it look like that when I pestered him? I hoped to Hell it didn't. 

   "Cans was knocking the door in!" Slick protested. "Besides, I wouldn't have dinner with your sorry hind any day of the God damned week." 

   "That's not what she told _me_ ," Stitch chimed in. "She said you was a right gentleman when you'd 'alf your wits about you." 

   Slick grabbed the nine ball out of the rack on the side of the table with his metal hand, tapped on it briefly to test its solidness, and flung it at Sitch. He ducked it, and so did the bartender, but the liquor was less fortunate. I felt rather than saw Droog's immense disapproval. It radiated off him like heat from a newly tarred road in the middle of July. 

   "Slick," he said, slowly, deliberately. "That was my _collection_." 

   "Make your pet tailor keep his big trap shut, then," Slick snapped. 

   Droog shot a glance at Stitch, then at me. "We're leaving," he said. 

   I was only too glad to agree. This place was getting too full of people ready and willing to stab somebody. Stitch grinned and hobbled away from the bar. It seemed like he would have leaned on the pool table, but Slick was glaring at him something fierce. 

   Droog grabbed his cue stick and and swung it down on one of the other tables to let off some steam. The stick snapped clean in half. Slick about jumped out of his pants at the noise he wasn't expecting, but Snowman didn't flinch. She just smirked, as if to say _cool it, hot stuff_. 

   Droog was awfully sore about being kicked out of his own house, and everyone there knew his temper was the stuff of legend. He stared daggers at every man, woman, and child who dared to give him a once-over as we were walking along down the street. Oh, brother, if looks could kill. 

   I hung back, a few paces behind him-- mostly to avoid the brunt of his rage, but also to have a bit of a chat with Stitch. He wasn't too close to Clover, even if he kept an eye out for the kid, or anybody else really connected with the case, but he was still Felt. They may have kept secrets, but most of the single-digit numbers tended to know what they were doing when it came to subterfuge. 

   "There," I said, "is a man deeply discontent with his lot in life." 

   "Nah, 'e's just sore with Snow for not saying anythin' to let 'im stay." 

   That was intriguing. "Are they very close?" 

   "'E stops 'er killin' Slick an' she stops _him_ killin' the rest of us." 

   I shivered despite the sunshine. Was his hair-trigger temper really restrained by a dame like her? I'd seen what he did to the cue stick, and I was, to say the least, concerned for the safety of any bystanders. I wouldn't trust either of them to stop anyone from killing anybody else. But if Stitch said it worked, I pretty much believed him. As far as the Felt went, he was probably the one I trusted the most. Which wasn't a lot to begin with, but at least you could turn your back on the fella without him gunning to stick a knife in it. 

   "Stop govoreeting, you dumb nazzes," Droog snapped. I knew then that we were in for it: he only reverted to his native pidgin, Nadsat, when he was really and truly angry. Stitch and I closed our mouths faster than hungry, hungry hippos. If Droog, in this state, wanted us to stop talking, then by God, we would stop. It wasn't worth risking having a cue stick broken over our heads. 

   Between Droog glaring daggers at everyone and demanding we remain silent, we had a pretty quiet walk. Occasionally he'd stop and turn around to make sure we were still following him. I had no idea where he was going, and I wasn't so sure _he_ had any idea either. He was stomping down side streets and alleys I'd never seen in the daylight before. The neighborhood the Morningstar found itself in wasn't exactly among my usual haunts. 

   "I know where we're at," Stitch said suddenly. I hadn't noticed it, but we were walking up the biggest hill in town: the hill that gave foundation to Felt Manor. 

   Felt Manor was a positively ancient mansion that had been here before the city was built. Droog persuaded Slick not to tear it down because it apparently had a certain charm to it. It was huge, imposing, and covered in ivy from chimney to foundation. The whole building was as green as the felt on a pool table, which was how the place got its name. Local lore dictated that the mob that had moved in took their name from the place, and that seemed like as good an explanation as any. I had to hand it to Doc Scratch: he was a Hell of a quick-witted son of a gun. What a clever extended metaphor. 

   "Damn straight you pony where we're at," Droog replied. "Sleuth's got a case to solve. The members of his own crew are either incompetent or absent. We're going to help him." 

   "You're going to help me? Diamonds Droog, helping somebody? You slay me." 

   "Can it, James." 

   "Ellery's not incompetent, anyway. Just overly cautious." 

   "I think you should listen to 'im." 

   I crossed my arms. "All I'm saying is maybe I don't need help. I'm not some kid, Droog. I can take care of myself." 

   "I offer you a gateway straight into the Manor with no struggle whatsoever and you say you don't want it. You're telling me you'd rather go through ten kinds of hoops, through Snowman's bullcal mind games, through Scratch's temporal circus, than just walk through the damn door and talk to whoever you need to bloody talk to." 

   That almost knocked the wind out of me. Leave it to Droog to throw logic in my face when I was trying to be petulant. "Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying." I didn't trust him; not that much. Getting too cosy with somebody who was, technically, the enemy wasn't something I was in the habit of doing. It had happened once before, in a moment of weakness, and I swore I would never let it happen again. The best course of action was to just quit the whole scene and hightail it back home before Droog decided I was going to have help or else. "Save your help for someone who gives a damn." 

   Stitch, surprisingly, was the one who stopped me marching out of there. "You listen 'ere, mate. Droog just offered you an 'ell of a deal, and you're walkin' out on it without 'alf a care in either direction." 

   "That's about the size of it," I said. 

   "You'll be one sorry bugger 'fore this case is done," Stitch muttered. He limped back over to Droog, said something to him that I didn't hear, then made his way to the Manor's front door and went inside. 

   Droog and I stood in the yard staring at each other for a long moment. We were both as hard-headed as woodpeckers wearing helmets. Neither one of us wanted to be the first to admit he'd said something wrong. 

   "Offer still stands, despite my better judgment," he said, after a while. He pulled a cigarette out of the pack in his breast pocket and lit it, and offered me one. I accepted. He lit mine off the end of his and handed it to me. 

   I didn't normally smoke, but I liked Droog's cigarettes. I always accepted them when he offered. Snowman's long French cigarettes, of which I'd had one or two over the course of my involvement with the Midnight Crew and the Felt, were too sweet-smelling to appeal to my taste. I'd had several of Ace's cigars before I decided they were far too strong. Somehow I'd even managed to have had one of Crowbar's smokes, once, and they were acrid and dry. Droog's found a happy medium between all of them. 

   "You mean it?" 

   He nodded, then stuck his free hand in his pocket. He frowned. "Maybe I was more attached to the kid than I thought I was. I'm feeling all these bullcal sentiments all of a sudden. I didn't even like him. He was always spilling things or getting nitroglycerine mixed up with regular glycerine. What a God damned disaster." 

   "I know how that is. Helen always used to spill things when she had a few too many." 

   Droog was still sporting his customary deadpan, but he blew smoke at me to show he wasn't nearly as angry as he'd been a half hour ago. "That's not remotely close to the same thing." 

   "Yeah," I said, wistfully. "But you know why I showed up, don't you." 

   He looked me up and down with those unreadable dark eyes of his, then he smirked. "She walked right out on your sorry ass." 

   "Bingo." 

   It was peaceful, standing there on the lawn of our mutual enemy's base. We could've broken in and caused any amount of havoc-- Hell, I was sure he even had a gun-- but we were content to stand there in the shared smoke of our conjoined disheartenedness. I was still a little chapped that he thought I couldn't handle it myself. The only thing I wouldn't have been able to handle was maybe the Doc and Snowman combined. They fought worse than Slick after a six-pack of cheap beer. Like two alley cats, striking hard and fast, one after the other. And it was worse because the Doc was like a father to Snowman and he did everything he could to kill anyone who threatened her, even though God knew she hardly needed the help. I hoped I wouldn't run into him any time soon. 

   "I better get going," Droog said, grinding his cigarette butt under his heel like he wished the whole yard would catch on fire. "She's probably got him tied down to the table with rats and a pendulum by now." 

   I told him I'd run into him later. He rolled his eyes and left. 

   I finished my cigarette and ambled around the the Manor for a while trying to decide whether or not to accept the help I'd been offered. 

   All the ground-floor windows of the colossal green mansion were shut tight. They were covered with ivy anyway, so they would afford me no entry. I hardly would've been able to climb up the walls and go through one of the skylights, but I couldn't just walk through the door without Droog or Stitch there to stop Crowbar, who sometimes served as the doorman, going medieval on me. 

   I ended up wandering over to the stables, which were behind the Manor. They were cut into the side of the truly massive hill. I had an _idea_. 

   The stables were empty, which meant that somebody must have been out riding the horses. I'd seen those horses out on parades before. They used to belong to the mayor. One of them was pure white with eyes as pink as bubblegum. Doc owned that one. The other one was as black as shoe polish at midnight; it belonged to Snowman. She probably wouldn't be happy when she discovered it had been ridden. I didn't want to stick around to find out. I didn't see the stablehands-- those would be Cans and Quarters-- around anywhere, and the doors were hanging wide open, so I took it as an invitation to snoop around. I didn't call it snooping, though. I called it investigating. 

   There was nothing in the stable that really jumped out and me and seemed as though it could have been used as a weapon-- but Hell, unless I talked to Snowman again, or to Clover, I couldn't even begin to wonder what the murder weapon had been. Theoretically, anything here could actually have been the very thing I was searching for. The only thing Snowman had said was that it was an execution, in my experience. That ruled out hanging and the like-- too slow for an execution. Gangsters always did it quickly and got the Hell out. Besides, Snowman hadn't mentioned anything about a hanging, though, and I doubted she would have left out such an important detail, even if she and the deceased were technically enemies. 

   It was like searching for hay in a stack of needles, because every hypothetical mistake was a potential source of massive frustration later on. Just when I was about to give up, a tiny little voice came from the long corridor to the inside of the Manor: "What are you doing here, Detective Elroy?" 

   It was Clover standing in the doorway, looking for all the world like his best friend had just been killed incredibly violently, which, you know, was exactly what had happened. How could I ever have thought he was responsible for the crime? --But wait, what if his luck was just enough to stop me suspecting him? I couldn't afford to let my guard down, even if he was a baby-face with puppy-dog eyes. 

   I turned my mind away from suspicion and had to smile at the way he'd greeted me. I hadn't been Detective Elroy for a long time; not since a certain someone had orchestrated my dismissal for the police force. I was still kind of bitter about that, but if he was willing to share his cigarettes and offer to help me break into and enter the home of the City's most elusive mafioso, I guessed the point was kind of moot. 

   "Investigating, Clover," I told him. "Trying to figure out what happened." 

   "I doubt Calumnia and Nero"-- those would be the horses-- "have much to do with--" he broke off and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. "You know." 

   "Gotta start somewhere, kid." 

   "I s-suppose so." He frowned. "Do you need some help?" 

   God, the poor kid sounded pitiful. His voice was reedy and whiny, like a busted saxophone. His eyes were red and puffed up; he'd clearly been crying, possibly nonstop, since he found Deuce. I couldn't ask him to swat a fly, let alone help me find a murder weapon.

   "No. No, you run along and get your eggs together, alright? You been through a lot, kid." 

   Clover nodded. "Good luck, Detective Elroy." That meant a lot, coming from him. He turned and went back down the hallway he'd just come from. He didn't shut the door. I considered that an invitation to go in, should the need arise. 

   I went into one of the horse's stalls to look around and something caught my eye: a horseshoe, shiny silver except for a brown stain on it. No way that was rust. Sunlight was streaming in just right, and it gleamed like an oil slick in the middle of the road. Now, a new horseshoe in a stable isn't really all that much of an oddity, but when it's caked in something that might be described as a gruesome maroonish-brown one can't help but notice it. 

   "Holy Hell," I breathed, bending down to examine the horseshoe. If that blood belonged to who I thought it did... 

   "What are you attempting to accomplish here?" 

   I almost died of fright as I whirled around to see who'd seen me. It was Quarters sitting astride Nero, the black horse. "Could ask the same of you. Ain't that Snowman's pony?" 

   "What Miss Snowman is unaware of cannot possibly cause her any harm." 

   I didn't want to summon the broad, so I changed the subject. "What do you know about Clubs Deuce's death?" I wasn't in any position to make demands; Quarters and that massive horse could both have eaten me alive in one bite. Still, I had to know. I held up the horseshoe and waved it at him. 

   "You might ask Matchsticks," Quarters suggested, his annoyance at my presence barely concealed. His knuckles were white, curled tightly around the horse's reins. "Now, do vacate my stables before Cans returns with Calumnia, or we shall have another murder on our hands." 

   I stared him down and pocketed the bloody horseshoe, then hauled tail back to my office. I knew a legitimate threat when I saw one, and Quarters was a violent son of a biscuit-eater when he was challenged on his own turf. Plus, he had the means to call anybody in the Felt to help him out, and I was sure I could have provided ample motive. It was best to back away slowly and come back later when I wasn't staring down the barrel of an angry son of a bitch with more angry sons of bitches at his beck and call.


	5. No Dice

   I couldn't help turning the horseshoe over in my hands as I walked, even though contaminating evidence wasn't usually something I was in the habit of doing. I couldn't _help_ it. Had this thing really had a part in Clubs Deuce's death? I couldn't believe it. 

   Horseshoes were normally considered lucky, but only if they're hung with the U facing up. This one had been hanging upside down. I wondered if it was a mark of ill omen or if someone had just hung it upside down for the Hell or convenience of it. With the minuscule of amount information I had, I couldn't afford to discredit any theory, as wingding as it may have seemed. I was grasping at straws, and every straw was equally likely to have been the one I was looking for. It was exasperating. 

   My mind wandered again to Clover's potential involvement. Horseshoes fell under the jurisdiction of luck, the way I saw it. He'd seemed so distraught, standing there among the hay and riding tack, but how good an actor was he, really? What was becoming my motto was echoing through my mind: _you can't afford to dismiss possibilities_... Had the actual murderer planted the shoe to frame Clover? Or had Clover himself murdered his best friend, and relied on me jumping to the wrong conclusion to get out of it? 

   I pocketed the horseshoe. My mind was reeling as I entered the lobby to the old, rickety building I called home. I greeted the doorman. "Afternoon, Hal." 

   "Helen showed up a while ago," Hal said. He leaned toward me and whispered conspiratorially, "I couldn't very well turn her away, so I told her you was busy. She went on up anyway. Hope she ain't got a key, brother." 

   I sighed. "Thanks, Hal." 

   The lobby was eerily empty for this time of day, but I paid it no mind. I figured, bitterly, that everyone must have been at the 3AM on account of how crowded it had looked when I'd stopped by. The elevator boy wasn't in the elevator, but then I knew how to operate an elevator anyway. 

   I pulled the lever that would send me up to the eighteenth floor, and the elevator complied with a groan of cables and gears. It was getting on in age, but in my opinion it still worked as well as it ever had. Some people held the belief that the elevator was haunted, but I personally didn't believe in ghosts. 

   I arrived at the proper floor to find P.I. standing in front of his office looking very distraught. 

   "What happened here?" I asked. "Whoa, hey, guy, calm down." 

   "Oh, James, it's awful, Helen--" 

   "What about Helen?" 

   The Inspector wrung his hands. "Well, I was on the phone and I wasn't paying attention and she-- she-- she stole my keys and... locked me out of my office..." 

   I blinked, dumbfounded. "Is that all?" 

   "She's drunk." 

   I cursed and slammed my fist into the wall. Helen drunk was a thousand times worse than anything I could imagine... Especially Helen drunk in Pickle Inspector's office. Imagine sending a hysterical tornado through a well-organized museum, then multiply it by a googolplex. It wouldn't even come close to what Helen could have been doing to that poor office. "We have to stop her," I declared. 

   P.I. was trembling as I dug my keys out of my pocket. Assuming everything was still in working order, we could utilize a system of secret rooms and passages behind our offices. The rooms had been built back when the Prohibition was really in full swing: the bootleggers used to squirrel up their bathtub gin and horse liniment, and carry it out through the back entrance of the building through the use of secret lifts. The back entrances had long since been boarded up, but the rooms were, hopefully, still in good working order. I'd only been back there a few times, and I hadn't exactly been thinking clearly then. I preferred not to think about it. 

   "Let's go," I said, unlocking my door. My office was still the mess I'd left it. Home sweet home. 

   "My God, Sleuth." P.I. almost fainted. He staggered to my desk and leaned on it, catching his breath. "How do you manage to get anything done in here?" 

   I shrugged and began feeling along the wall for the hatch to the back room. It wasn't on the left wall, and the right wall bordered the Inspector's office... 

   I gasped. It must have been behind the mural. "We've got to tear this ugly mother down," I said, gravely. 

   "I don't normally condone the destruction of art, but then I don't suppose this technically counts as art in the first place." P.I. grinned devilishly. I was concerned. 

   Honestly, I was a little sad to see the mural go. As horrendous as it was, I'd grown somewhat accustomed to its smiling faces greeting me whenever I entered my office. I'd even named some of the people it depicted: the allegedly Spanish flamenco dancer, whose arms were slightly lopsided, was called doña Rosa. The Bavarian eating a doughnut was Herr Hans. The stately Armenian gentleman was Andrej. I had grown attached to them, and I was sad to see them go. They were dear to my heart, but I supposed I could manage to go on without them--especially if it meant saving the Inspector's office from Helen. 

   I tore into Rosa's red and black skirt, ripping the wallpaper away with it. A blank white wall revealed itself to me. I pulled more of the mural away, bidding farewell to Hans as I did so. 

   Meanwhile, the Inspector had started on the other end of the wall. He was in the process of removing part of what I had always assumed to be the Eiffel Tower, but it now looked more like the Golden Gate Bridge. 

   "Try under that Arc de Triomphe," I suggested, tearing at Abraham Lincoln's impressive beard. The sixteenth president's face peeled away to reveal part of a hinge. "Wait, no, I think I found it." 

   "For goodness' sake." The Inspector muttered to himself and assisted me in removing Lincoln from the wall. 

   There was an old wooden door that looked like it should have rotted away a while ago. It had no knob, and it didn't look locked, so I pushed on it. It fell off the hinges and I fell through in an explosion of dust and cobwebs. 

   "Are you alright?" the Inspector exclaimed, rushing into the room to help me up. I didn't notice his outstretched hand in my rush to clamber off the floor and brush away any possible spiders. If there was one thing I hated more than just about anything, it was spiders. He looked kind of dejected, but I wasn't too worried about it. It was going to be worse in about five minutes anyway. 

   "Yeah, I'm... fine," I said, distractedly. The room was dark, so I was squinting in an attempt to see by the light from my office window. There was graffiti on the walls, as far as I could tell. How long had it been since I'd been back here? It had been the night I was kicked off the force. I remember having holed up back here with entirely too much alcohol. How long ago _had_ that been? Four years? Seven? It was probably kind of pathetic that I couldn't remember how long ago I'd been kicked off the force. All I remembered was squatting here until the owners more or less gave up trying to evict me and I basically ended up common-law inheriting the building. I vaguely remembered the Midnight Crew having had something to do with the fact that I never had to pay rent, but I didn't want to go down that particular Memory Lane. Not now, anyway. 

   "There's a little catwalk over here," Pickle Inspector called. I hadn't noticed him moving along down the narrow hallway to his office from mine. He was standing about midway down the catwalk, waiting on me. 

   I edged along down the shaky walkway; it didn't look terribly stable, and I wasn't terribly keen to find out exactly how much weight a rusted-out I-beam could hold. 

   We reached the Inspector's back room door. The sound of an ancient record player ambling along could be heard, along with Helen singing off-key at the top of her lungs. P.I. grimaced and pulled on the door's handle. These hinges were less rusty and better-preserved for reasons unknown. The door swung neatly open, and it was free of spiders. 

   Helen didn't appear to notice the door opening; she kept singing. P.I. blanched when he saw the extent of the destruction. 

   His desk was upside-down and propped against the hallway door like a barricade. I didn't know how blocking off an iron door would add any type of security, but then I supposed Helen _had_ been drunk when she decided to prop it up. Its contents were strewn all over the office, laying every which way on the floor and making a good effort to get inside the kitchenette. The fan was hanging halfway out the window, still plugged into its outlet. It clicked uselessly against the window sash, unable to oscillate. I glanced over just in time to see the Inspector wipe away a silent tear he'd shed at the sight of the desecration. It would have been funny if it weren't so sad. 

   "God, what a tragedy," I said. He nodded."Get in there and avenge it, my obsessive-compulsive friend," I whispered, clapping him on the back. 

   He nodded again, solemnly, and marched in. I hung back. 

   "Helen." 

   Helen finally stopped screeching and whirled around to face him. She stumbled a little, then held her arms out to steady herself. "Ehhhllery," she slurred. 

   "What the Hell have you done to my office?" 

   Helen giggled tipsily, staggering over to lean on the desk. "Why don't you ask James what he done to me? Left me for Diamonds Droog, he did," she said. What a weak rebuttal. "Or should I say--" she paused to gather her thoughts. "Should I say _Sleuth_ ," she spat. 

   I crossed my arms and emerged from the back room. "Now, just a cotton-picking second," I protested. 

   Helen turned her nose up at me. "Get out; get him out of here, Ellery." 

   "Helen, this is my office and you're not welcome here in your current state." I had to hand it to P.I.: he could be pretty authoritative when someone or something threatened his naturally anal-retentive way of life. Congratulations were in order when we finally got Helen out of here. "Now p-please leave or I'll be forced to have someone come and get you." He glanced at me. I nodded encouragingly. 

   Helen crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out. "I'm not movin' a single toe," she declared. 

   "Then neither am I. Sleuth, go and telephone someone to remove her, please." 

   I grinned and ducked back into the room. I wanted to investigate it more, but there wasn't time to do so at present. 

   I hurried down the hallway to the telephone in the dumbwaiter. I had no idea who I was going to call, but I knew I better make it good. 

   As I dialed the operator, I had an idea that I hoped would turn out to be brilliant. 

   "To whom may I connect you?" 

   "Yes, get me, uh, Felt Manor, please." I paused. "This is very important. Very important." 

   "Problem Sleuth? Is this some kind of joke?" 

   "No, ma'am. I need to be connected to Felt Manor as soon as possible." 

   "Your funeral." I could feel her disapproving stare all the way through the phone line. There was a click, and then the phone on the other end rang. 

   "H-hello?" 

   It was Die, the timeline-hopper who was scared of his own shadow. I had no idea how I was going to make this work, but I knew I couldn't let P.I. down. 

   "Can you send, let's say, uh, Cans? Can you send Cans over here? I need him to escort somebody out." 

   "Problem Sl-sleuth? What d-do you want with Cans? H-he's in the stables w-w-with-- with Quarters." 

   "Just send somebody or I swear I'll reach through the phone and pull you through it." 

   I could almost feel him trembling like a leaf in a hurricane. It was a wonder he hadn't dropped the telephone or shaken something loose inside of it. Suddenly, there was a crash that sounded exactly like Die dropping the damned phone. I guessed I'd spoken too soon. "S-s-sorry. Crowbar st-startled me and I d-d-dropped the telephone." 

   "Just get over here. Don't even send anybody. Just come here." "Ok-k-kay." He hung up. I wondered if that counted in the tally of people who'd hung up on me, or if he was just so frightened that he had to slam the phone down. I agreed to disagree with myself and called it a half-point. 

   I took the creepy, decrepit elevator down to the lobby, where Die was already waiting for me. "Which timeline did you hop to get here?" I asked, genuinely curious. 

   "The most c-current one w-where Clubs Deuce is dead." He might have been lying; probably was. I didn't like trusting the Felt. 

   "And where the Hell were you before?" 

   Die fiddled with his voodoo doll's arms. "The one where only the Snow-m-man and I are alive." He paused. "And L-l-lord-- L-lord Engl--" 

   "Don't hurt yourself, man," I interrupted. I didn't know how the operators' office had the capability to connect to alternate timelines, and I didn't want to know how they'd done it in the first place. All that mattered was getting Die up to the eighteenth floor without getting killed in the elevator, either by strange occult forces or by Die himself. 

   "Well, let's get a wiggle on." 

   Die looked nonplussed, but then he always had that sort of vaguely bewildered look about him. "Sorry?" 

   "We're going upstairs. Get in the elevator." 

   Die balked and went paler than he usually was-- which, with his stringy black hair and deep-set eyes, was just about as pale as anything could be. He looked like some kind of vampire. I doubted he ever slept, or ate, or did anything that wasn't poring over old books in languages nobody spoke anymore. The fella was almost a dead ringer for old Death; they could have been brothers. "Y-y-you mean get _in_ the elevator? In a tiny metal b-box reliant on old rusted cables a-a-and-- oh, no, I don't think I c-can do that." 

   I frowned. He was going to get in that elevator or my name was Titus Andronicus. And it wasn't. "Look, pal, you'll keel over if you take the stairs." 

   "No, I w-won't. I know precisely how I'm g-going to leave this world, and stairs have n-nothing to do with it." 

   I reminded myself not to talk so cleverly with him. He was the type that took everything literally. He and P.I. probably could have been friends, if either of them was the kind of guy that wanted friends in the first place. 

   "Just get in the elevator. Paranoia's not going to do anything for you." 

   Die grimaced. "Alright," he said, slowly. "But I'm n-not going to enjoy it." 

   I didn't care if he was the saddest little elf in the North Pole-- it was my intention to get him in that elevator, and by God, I was going to do it. I marched him to the door and pushed the button to call the elevator. I halfway expected it to be in use somewhere else, but thankfully it opened right away. "In," I said. He grudgingly stepped over the threshold. 

   It was the most awkward elevator ride I ever participated in. Die was twiddling the pins stuck in his voodoo doll, possibly contemplating pulling one of them out and teleporting himself away. Maybe he would pull my pin-- kind of a sobering thought-- which was designated by a little quill. I resolved to stare straight ahead until the elevator reached the eighteenth floor, and stare straight ahead I did. 

   The elevator's door slid open with a _ding!_ and I ushered Die out of it. "W-what exactly am I supposed to be doing here, anyway?" he asked. 

   "My girl friend is drunk and she won't leave Pickle Inspector's office. I need you to scare her out." 

   "Surely you m-m-must be joking." 

   "I'm dead serious." 

   He gave a little chuckle, then stopped himself and looked around sheepishly, as if someone might have heard him actually enjoying himself. "My. I know how serious the dead are. I'll help." 

   I tole Die to wait outside while I navigated the squirrel-hole behind my office. P.I. looked frantic when I got there. 

   "Thank God," he said, exasperated. "She's threatening to jump out the window with the fan. I don't know how much longer I can hold her off. I hope you've brought someone who can get her out of here." 

   I held up a finger-- _wait a minute_ \-- and dashed back out the back room. I motioned for Die to follow this time, and he did, reluctantly. 

   "This looks d-dangerous," he said, shaking the catwalk gently to test its integrity. 

   "Well, yeah, it's definitely dangerous if you're gonna rattle it like that. Come on." I practically had to drag him across. 

   Pickle Inspector was standing by the window, trying to dissuade Helen from jumping. If I weren't so concerned it probably would have been funny. She'd threatened to do absolutely stupid things before, but I wondered just how far she'd be willing to push it. We'd never had a fight this big before. She must have been absolutely torn up if she were threatening to do a thing like this. I momentarily felt awful, but thankfully somebody knew what to do. 

   "Oh, my goodness," Die said, a little shakily, injecting himself into the situation almost immediately. Pickle Inspector looked vaguely bewildered, but then he always looked sort of disappointedly surprised at everything anyway. "The stars are simply not in a position for you to commit any sort of suicidal act, madame." 

   I wondered how much of it he was making up, and where his stutter had gone. Was he a better actor than I thought? I stood just inside the door and watched everything unfold. 

   Die practically dragged the dame away from the window and into the center of the room. He took her hand gingerly with a _"May I?"_ and inspected her palm like a fortune-teller. "Hm. The position of the heart line indicates to me that you should certainly not be in this part of town at all. Oh, no." 

   I saw Helen mouth what might have been _who is this fella?_ ; P.I. shrugged. "I shouldn't?" Helen said, her voice up three octaves in wonder. 

   "Absolutely not. You should return home as quickly as possible to minimize and damage your aura may have already incurred." 

   "My aura?" Helen asked. She was drunk, and she certainly sounded it. Her words were slurred together and she was mumbling worse than I did after an all-nighter on a case. Granted, my all-nighters usually involved alcohol as well, but she could drink me under the table any day of the week. It was kind of impressive. 

   "Oh, yes. Everyone has an aura that surrounds them like a cocoon. It keeps one safe from possible psychic afflictions." 

   "Well gosh, I'd better-- better get home, then." 

   "Absolutely. It's terribly important. Your aura looks like a very large, very nasty bruise." 

   "Oh, dear." 

   Die nodded gravely. "I'll have my assistant get you down to the lobby and call a cab, shall I?" He shot me a look. That was my cue to emerge from the back room, looking for all the world like a dutiful assistant. I had no idea what a dutiful assistant was supposed to look like, but I hoped I was doing my best. It would have to suffice, or Die could take it up with me later. Alone. When I had access to firearms. 

   "Yes, positively." 

   I took Helen almost bodily from Die, making sure to add in a _thoughtful_ glance at him for putting his paws all over my dame. He may have been a coward, but he was still Felt, and the Felt had almost no respect for other people's relationals. 

   Helen staggered to the door and shoved the desk out of the way. I was scared. She stumbled through the door and I rushed forward to help her walk straight. I doubted she could operate the elevator by herself, let alone call a cab. I had to go with her even if she could probably have crushed me like a fly in her hysterical state. 

   She maintained an icy silence on the way down to the lobby. I almost hoped the elevator would get stuck just so it would give me something to make conversation about. Anything was better than this silence. She may have been zozzled, but she still had enough of her wits about her to know she was angry as a hornet with me. I didn't dare push her for fear of what she might do. 

   The lobby was as sepulchrally quiet as the elevator had been, if more cavernous. I hoped there were witnesses around it she decided to commit murder. 

   "Helen--" I began. 

   "I don't want to hear it. You solve your damn case and maybe we'll talk." 

   I swallowed my pride and called her a cab. When it got there, she didn't let me help her into it. 

   The elevator protested wearily on the way back up. Its cables sounded fit to snap. I wondered it if it wouldn't have been more prudent to take the stairs next time I needed to get back up to my office. The stairs were long and steep, though, and I doubted I had enough left in me today to climb them. I'd already had a conversation with Droog, a fight with Helen, a run-in with Quarters, and now I had to deal with Die. I hardly even knew the man. I rested my head on the metal wall of the elevator and banged it a couple times for good measure. The walls sounded just thin enough to meet the city's building code. 

   Die and Pickle Inspector had unlocked the door to the formerly occupied office by the time I got back up there, and were sitting on top of the desk, which was now in its proper place. It was completely unlike either of them to do something to rebellious as sitting on a desk. I wondered what had come over them. 

   "What's come over you?" I asked. 

   "P-pickle Inspector here w-was just telling me about the case you've very recently t-t-taken," Die said. "G-give my condolences t-t-to Hearts B-boxcars." 

   I hung my hat on the rack, which had also been righted and restored to its former position. "Is that so?" I eyed P.I. with scrutiny. He knew he couldn't just go telling every Tom, Die, and Harry about our cases. What did he know that I didn't? Where did he have connections? 

   "He has information," the Inspector said. "He knows who might have committed the murder and he has evidence to back it up." 

   "Does he, now." Perhaps the inspector was forgetting that Die himself was a suspect. I had half a mind to light him up one side and down the other as soon as our _guest_ left, but I figured it would be best to let them explain themselves first. 

   "I h-have reason to believe it was--" He looked around as though he were being watched. she seemed to do that a lot. I wondered if it was one of the marks of a guilty conscience, or if it was just one of his nervous habits. "I think it was Matchsticks." 

   "Yeah?" Matchsticks was one of my suspects, too, but Die didn't need to know that. "Why?" 

   "The v-va-v-- the vault was charred in some places." 

   "That does explain how the room remained locked," P.I. said. 

   I halfway jumped on top of him in my excitement. There was some new evidence. I was like a kid at a carnival when new evidence came into the scene; I always have been. "Do you have proof?!" 

   Die smiled almost serenely. It looked out of place on his gaunt face. He reached over and took my hand. "I can take you there presently," he said, then pulled one of the pins out of his doll without waiting for me to say yea or nay. I had a feeling he liked doing that sort of thing-- making other people the bewildered ones. 

   It was the oddest sensation, being dragged backwards through time and landing directly on my hind end. I'd never been in the vault before, and this was not the best first time I'd ever had. The vault looked just about like a murder scene should, and, truly enough, there were several scorch-marks on the floor and walls. Maybe he _was_ telling the truth, but I still didn't trust him as much as one should trust one's partner in solving crime. 

   Everything was tinged a sickly green, and my vision swam trying to correct it. I wondered if it was an effect of the temporal magic, or if the whole mansion really was green inside. I'd heard rumors that Doc Scratch's chambers-- the tower and the observatory-- were completely and totally verdant, but I had no idea if they were really true or not. 

   I saw Die out of the corner of my eye. Why hadn't he landed in a more embarrassing fashion? I supposed he'd probably done this a couple times before. 

   "Did everything come through alright?" Die asked, Extending a hand to help me up. I was afraid he'd fall over, but maybe he was a little stronger than he looked, especially when he was in his element. 

   I got to my feet and dusted myself off, then caught sight of the body. "Holy Hell," I breathed. "The poor kid." 

   "Rather gruesome," Die agreed. "I'm hardly a doctor, but I'd venture his organs are missing." 

   "I'll say." Clubs Deuce was propped up against the door to the basement with a blood spatter big enough to shame God behind him. His ribcage was hanging open like a busted screen door, and his heart, lungs, stomach, and other various visceralities had very clearly vanished. I wasn't sure yet how he'd died, though, and the only way to find out was to ask. The only thing I had to go on was the horseshoe, which incriminated Quarters at least and maybe Cans too if it held up. 

   "How'd he bite it?" 

   If Die was shocked at the informality, he didn't show it at all. I had to give him some points for that. "I can't say I rightly know. Fin believes it might have been a hanging, and then the body was... desecrated thusly." 

   I leaned as close to the body as I could stomach. It was an awful sight. I needed to inspect the neck to see if there were any ligature marks-- distinctive bruises left behind by a rope. There was too much blood for me to get a clear look, though, and the City coroner would be on me like white on rice if he knew the scene had been tampered with by the tie it got reported to the officials, so I had to let it be. I wondered briefly if the coroner would even be notified in the first place. "Fin's... not too bright, is he?" 

   Die twiddled his doll thoughtfully. "Not exactly, no." 

   I continued examining the body, and continued to suddenly understand absolutely nothing. What I needed was to get in here before the murder had occurred. In any other circumstance, I noted bitterly, that would have made me sound crazy. I hated time travel. It played havoc with my inner ear. 

   "Say, Die, can you finagle Sawbuck into getting me in here before the murder happened? I have a feeling we're a couple hours afterwards, aren't we?" 

   Die looked at me like I was speaking in tongues. "We're a couple hours afterwards," he parroted. "But I'm afraid I can't allow you to visit the scene before the crime occurs." 

   "Why the Hell not?" 

   "You might tamper. Tampering is disallowed. It discombobulates the basic temporal structures of the Incipisphere and paradox space." 

   "Well, excuse _me_." I had about half an idea what he'd said, and I didn't feel like pursuing the matter further. 

   "I'm afraid you'll have to leave now." Die stuck the pin back in his doll and I felt myself being pulled through time. 

   I landed on my rear. Again. 

   This time I was in the Inspector's office. Nothing was green, except for possibly my face. I felt sicker than a dog. "Time travel," I said, "is not worth the hassle." 

   "You look a fright." 

   I peeled myself off the floor and leaned heavily against the wall. I felt like a hangover had been stuck in the oven and warmed up, then served to me after a very hungry banshee had taken a huge bite out of it. I had a headache worse than the bell-ringers of Notre Dame. My legs refused to cooperate, and I could hardly keep my gaze fixed on one thing at a time. 

   "I need to see that crime scene before it happened." 

   To his credit, the Inspector seemed to catch on to what I meant very quickly. "Die wouldn't take you further back in time?" 

   "Said it would break paradox space, somethin' like that." 

   "You hardly seem to be in a condition to travel in time in the first place, my friend." 

   "Don't I know it." I staggered toward the door. "I'll be over in the morning."


	6. What Was Missing

   I wasn't over in the morning; not first thing, anyway. I was nursing a temporal hangover the likes of which I wouldn't have wished on my worst enemy and I could hear Ace's phone ringing inside the dumbwaiter at the end of the hallway. 

   "Answer the damn phone," I hollered to no one in particular, but the catwalk between the Inspector's office and mine was closed. I rolled out of bed and planted my feet firmly on the floor, bracing myself against the wall. I was no longer dizzy, but every tendril of light that pried its way between my eyelids was a harpoon straight to my frontal lobe. I groaned. 

   My office was still a mess, but it was home. The fact that it looked like a kindergarten had exploded in here made no difference to me. In fact, it made the place more homey. 

   I shuffled zombie-like down the hallway and answered the rudely ringing telephone. "Hello--" 

   "I have a heart in a box on my kitchen table; now you tell me what the Hell's going on." 

   Spades Slick. "Slow down, fella, I can't understand a word you're sayin'." It was too early in the morning for this. It was not at all the kind of greeting I was supposed to be giving-- I was supposed to be offering my condolences to inconsolable dames in the heat of the night, not pacifying Spades Slick at seven in the God damned morning. 

   "Someone mailed me the kid's heart. We thought it might be a bomb so I had Droog open it because he knows the second most about bombs after the kid. He knows nothing about bombs. So. It's Deuce's heart. In a box. On my God damned kitchen table. Tell me what's going on." 

   "Mother of God," I muttered, wiping my face wearily. It was _definitely_ too early for this. "You have a vascular organ sitting in a box? And the first thing you can think of to do is call me?" 

   "Don't you get fresh with me, you fucker; Droog's right here if you'd rather parley with him. I've got just as short a temper about this as you do. I'm tired of Boxcars' blubbering. Either get your ass down to the Star or help me out and make this quick and painless." 

   "I _would_ rather talk to Droog, actually." 

   "So be it." It sounded like there was a brief scuffle over how to hand the phone over before it was actually handed over. 

   "Boxcars tried to eat the heart," Droog said lazily. I imagined the slightest hint of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. Before I met him, I had no idea it was possible to be so smug and yet so stoic at the same time. "Before he realized whose it was." 

   "Good morning." 

   "He's an honest to Bog cannibal." 

   "And this amuses you?" I sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of the dumbwaiter. I wished I had a notebook with me in case anything important came up; I didn't trust myself to remember everything so early in the morning. Unlike the Midnight Crew, who really should have been called the Too Early Crew, I was hardly a morning person. I preferred to sleep in until the phone rang, which, due to the fact that the one I'd previously owned until it took a vacation out the window hardly ever connected to the operators' office often enough to ring, was rarely. 

   "A little." 

   I pinched the telephone between my cheek and shoulder and rubbed my temples. "Was there a note, a letter, anything?" 

   "Box had some maths on it. I've been looking over it a while. Slick hates maths and Boxcars tried to eat his best mate's heart. Neither of them is in a position to do anything more than tie his shoes right now, and Boxcars can barely do that as it is." 

   "A math problem?" The first conclusion I jumped to was the Felt's numerical designations. Maybe solving the equation would yield a hint to the number of the crime's perpetrator. 

   "Yes. Awfully difficult one, at that. Makes no sense. Too many variables." 

   I knew all about there being too many variables for something to make sense: this case was full of them. Who killed Clubs Deuce? Why? How? Too many questions, and too little information to solve them with. I'd never been terribly good at math, so I doubted I would be much help to Droog. Even so, I wanted to see the box, if only to get a feel for what kind of evidence I would be dealing with. 

   "You want me to come over there?" 

   "No," Droog said. Predictable. He never had been the type to ask for help. 

   "Alright. I'll be the in, say, an hour. Mind if I steal breakfast?" 

   "Yes, I do mind." 

   "Duly noted. Have the bartender cook up whatever's laying about, okay?" 

   "No. We're not going to feed you." 

   "Thanks a million, pal." I hung up before he could and marked the victory with gusto. Not only had I hung up on him for once, but I also was almost guaranteed breakfast out of the deal. That's just the way Diamonds Droog operated: he could be a real heel, but bless his heart, he never joked when it came to breakfast. 

   I hated to spend more time at the Morningstar than I had to, but desperate times called for slightly more desperate measures than usual. I had a feeling Droog was going to pull me into one of the back rooms so we could study the box. In a room alone with a Midnighter was hardly where I wanted to be at this point in my life, or ever again, really. No one could claim I didn't make sacrifices for my job, at least. 

   The street was just as quiet today as it had been yesterday, and this time I was grateful for the silence rather than angry at Droog for waking me up. If it had been loud out I would probably have turned right around and hibernated until this temporal hangover blew away. I had half a mind to ask Die just what had gone down in that timeline he'd taken me to. In fact, whose timeline had it even been? Had it owed its existence to some poor average Joe's untimely departure, or did it belong to someone more consequential? What if it had been my timeline, and I had been visiting it Ebenezer Scrooge style? My head was starting to hurt worse the more I thought about what laws of physics had been broken during my little trip into the past. I resolved not to think about it until Die agreed to explain it in little words. 

   The walk to the Morningstar seemed shorter this time. Maybe it was because I was almost sure I wouldn't be shot on sight on account of I had been specifically summoned. Whatever it was that gave me the confidence to show my face there, I was sure glad for it. I needed all the help I could get on this case, as much as I hated to admit it. Originally I'd wanted to be a big hard-boiled hero and solve everything by my lonesome, but circumstances beyond my control had prohibited me from doing so. Well, come what may, I told Fate. Let them all help me if they want. See if I give half a damn. I'll take your help and I'll solve this case in record time to boot, you old hag. 

   Fate just rolled its eyes at me, as it often did. 

   Droog was the one who opened the door at the bottom of the stairs this time around, and he didn't even slide the window open to see who was knocking. It was as if he knew I was going to be there. Then again, I doubted the Morningstar usually had visitors at seven o' clock in the morning. I told myself not to worry about it. 

   Droog practically led me by the hand into the main back room, where Slick was pacing back and forth and Boxcars was sitting at a table in the corner staring at the heart, which sat on a glass platter in front of him. It was a gruesome sight if I'd ever seen one, and I supposed I had. 

   "You're late, Sleuth," Slick said as soon as my toes crossed the threshold. 

   "Sorry," I said. I had a feeling I would have been late even if I'd been perfectly on time. 

   "Whatever. Droog, take him back there and keep him out of my sight. I don't want to see him. Understood?" 

   Droog told him it was understood and nearly dragged me down the hallway. 

   His room was terrifying. 

   The walls were covered with racks and the racks were covered with guns. Guns upon guns. Rifles here, handguns there, and I could have sworn there was a machine gun propped up in the corner. The accommodations were otherwise Spartan; there was a bed, a desk, and a chair. The box-- a small, square, cardboard thing, hardly indicative of what it had carried-- sat on the desk. The box was marked on one side with a series of equations in tiny, neat handwriting that seemed to feed into one another. X here was Y there, and vice versa. I could hardly stand to look at it for too long. 

   Aside from all that, there was one wall completely covered in paper tacked to it. It reminded me of my own paper/yarn wall. The paper itself was covered in what seemed like hundreds of tiny equations, some of them scribbled out and others circled with red ink. Some had question marks next to them. Others had huge arrows drawn to another part of the paper. 

   "My God, are these notes on that box?" I didn't wait for Droog to confirm or deny it. "And you got it this morning?" 

   I'd always wondered what Diamonds Droog's brain looked like inside, and this was as close as I was going to get without getting myself shot. It was impressive, yet horrifying. The small amount of the notes I could understand we're the parts that seemed to be the easiest-- the setup for the rest of the equation. It was mind-boggling. 

   "As you can see," Droog said, taking a seat at his desk, "I'm out of ideas." 

   "Mother of God-- I should hope so. If I ever had this many ideas in a day I'd probably explode." 

   "Try calculating trajectory in your head while trying to shoot at someone who technically only exists five minutes from now." 

   "Fin?" I ventured. 

   "The last time I shot at Fin I was thinking in calculus for a week afterward." 

   "Yes, yes, I get it," I said, sitting on the edge of the bed. It was to his credit that he didn't have kittens about the fact that I was messing the sheets up. He was almost as obsessive-compulsive as the Inspector. "You're incredibly smart; now, let's solve this box." 

   Droog leaned back in his chair. "I don't know where to start." I doubted he'd ever said that before in his life. He wasn't the type to admit he needed help with something, and certainly not the type to tell his boss to call up his rival to ask for it. It was kind of endearing, to be honest. Might have hated his guts, but at least he provided ample opportunity for me to hate them platonically. 

   "I was thinking it has something to do with the billiard balls." 

   "No. Look." He waved me over towards the desk. I leaned over his shoulder as he pointed at something nearly invisible on a sheet of paper next to the box. I assumed he'd transcribed the equation onto a more accessible medium. "See how X becomes Y here, and see W here? It can't be one number because the domain of X over Z ends up being equal to-- six hundred and something over eleven. Negative Z over X has to be the reciprocal of that whole part. It doesn't work." 

   "Oh. Okay." I had no idea what he'd just told me, but if he said one equaled zero I doubted I'd have been able to argue with him at that point. I was completely and totally out of my element, out in the open water, so I did the next best thing I could do: sat on the edge of the desk and annoyed him while he tried to get work done. 

   "Did you try doing it backwards?" I asked, swinging my feet. "Upside down?" 

   "I've tried everything. Literally everything." 

   "Them's the breaks, pal." 

   Droog exhaled wearily, which I took to mean _tell me about it_. 

   "I'm gonna go get breakfast," I said. 

   "I don't advise it." 

   "Why not?" 

   "New guy cooked you something. Boxcars already ate it. Besides, Slick doesn't want you out there." 

   "Will you go get something for me, then?" 

   Droog glared up at me. "What do you want," he said, flatly. 

   "Whatever's laying around, o my brother," I said. 

   "I'm not your brother," he said, snappishly, then let the chair fall forward. "Don't touch anything." He stalked out of the room. 

   I grinned maniacally. There were so many things I could do to this room while he was away-- but the fact that I would have been acting just like Helen had last night was enough to stop me. Instead of wrecking everything, I contented myself with staring intently at the equation on the paper. I picked up the pencil on the desk and chewed on it while I gave the problem a good look. I was no mathematical genius, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I knew my way around long division and square roots and whatnot. I wondered what would happen if I were to just divide this part by X... And then multiply it by that one number there... 

   Before too long, I had marked all over Droog's nice, organized paper with my own chicken-scratch handwriting-- but I had managed to drag a number out of the jumble of letters and symbols I'd never seen before: 37. Thirty seven. It meant nothing to me, really. Whether or not it meant anything to anyone else was up for debate. It certainly didn't seem to be a secret code or a combination of the Felt's numbers-- Trace and Crowbar could hardly stand one another, let alone coordinate efforts enough to commit a murder together. 

   Droog came back holding a plate with some bacon and an egg on it. "Thought I told you not to touch anything." 

   I jumped: I hadn't heard him open the door. I didn't say anything; I just held up the paper. My handwriting was huge and childishly sloppy compared to his. He nearly dropped the food when he caught sight of the problem's solution, which I'd hastily scribbled and circled just as messily. 

   "How the Hell--" he began, leaning closer to the paper and squinting at it. 

   "I don't know," I said. 

   "What did you--" 

   "I don't _know_." 

   Droog set the plate on the desk and sat himself on the bed, staring blankly at the wall. He looked as positively dejected as I'd ever seen him. 

   "I'm real sorry, it just kind of-- happened." 

   "James, you're some kind of idiot genius, I swear to God." He sprung up from the bed, took the paper, and examined it, as if somehow he couldn't believe what he'd seen. 

   "Thanks." I bit my tongue. "Where's the 'but'?" 

   Droog shrugged noncommittally. "Just don't know how you manage to be such a complete numbskull and somehow an Einstein at the same time." 

   It was hard to accept a genuine compliment from Droog; usually when he said something nice, he wanted something. Sure, he might have attached a healthy dose of _James, you're an idiot_ to this one, but he'd still admitted that I'd done something he couldn't. 

   "I don't know what it has to do with anything, though. Thirty seven." 

   "Nor do I." 

   I shrugged and started on the bacon. No use solving life-changing conundrums on an empty stomach. 

   We spent the better part of two slow hours trading theories back and forth about what thirty seven could possibly have referred to. He postulated that it might have been a great big red herring; I told him it would be ridiculous for the perpetrator to have gone to so much trouble just to throw us off. He called me a moron, among other things; I called him a trigger-happy gun-jumper. 

   "All I'm saying is it's a bunch of nonsense." 

   "The Hell it is. It has to mean _something_ , Droog." 

   "You're chasing coincidences." 

   I crossed my arms and leaned up; I'd been lying on the bed because Droog had long since stolen the desk chair back from me. "He wouldn't have sent it if it didn't mean something." 

   "So who do you think it was." 

   I wondered if I shouldn't have kept my big mouth shut, but there would be no shoving the cat back in the bag. "Matchsticks." 

   "He's too polite to commit murder." 

   "I saw the scene." 

   Droog looked at me like I had two heads. "Bullcal." 

   "Die came over to the office last night. I asked him to prove he hadn't had a hand in it and he took me there." I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. I had a feeling I was wearing out my welcome quickly: Droog didn't really like to be told he was glaringly, absolutely wrong. Certainly not twice in the same day. 

   "The Hell does that have to do with Matchsticks?" 

   "There were scorches on the floor." 

   Droog crumbled, or at leat his shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly. He wasn't cut out to be a detective, that was for sure. He couldn't handle being confronted with a dead end like this. "Go home," he said. "Take the box if you want it. I'm sick of the damned thing." 

   I did take the box. "See you," I said. The reply was a petulant, teenage _whatever_. As long as I live, I don't think I'll ever figure out exactly what makes Diamonds Droog tick. I don't think anyone ever will, really. 

   I narrowly avoided Snowman and Slick fighting about something or other on the way out of the Morningstar. I didn't know where I was headed, but I knew I had to go somewhere. I didn't want to hang around with a sulking Droog, a murderous Slick, and a hungry Boxcars. Snowman was easier to deal with-- but only when she was on her own. I wanted to interview her at some point, but I had to get her alone first. She was Hell around other people. It wasn't going to be easy. 

   I had all the intention in the world of going home and taking a nap, but I had a feeling something would happen to derail my idea of a perfect afternoon. Something did happen, and that something was Trace and Fin. 

   I hardly saw the long, dark green car pull up next to the curb before they dragged me into it. I was too surprised to even give a cry of protest.


	7. Drawing Thin

   Trace and Fin may have been thugs, but to their credit I hadn't been hit over the head with anything. It had to count for something that they'd been professional enough to have simply opened the door, tripped me, and dragged me inside. The car sped up. I couldn't see who was driving it, but I had a feeling it might have been Itchy on account of the lead foot he was exhibiting. 

   I crashed onto the floor and looked up to see Fin and Trace, the past-and-future twins themselves, sitting there smugly. Trace was adjusting the lapels of his jacket; he was probably the one who'd tripped me. So they _were_ twins, after all, numbers three and five. Trace was the older twin, from what I'd heard, even though he had the lower number. He was slightly taller than his brother, and he wore a red hat. Fin was a little smaller and slimmer, and his hat was orange. They both had the reddest hair I'd ever seen, but Fin wore his a little shorter. Outside of that, if they weren't wearing their hats, there wasn't much of a way to tell them apart.

   "What's the meaning of this?!" I exclaimed when I finally managed to sit upright in the speeding car. Fin was taking great care to flash the handgun that was lying in his lap, so I didn't dare climb into the seat next to the two of them. I knew when it was better to sacrifice dignity rather than risk getting a bullet through the sternum. 

   "We need--" 

   "--to talk with you, pal." 

   Oh, God. I suddenly remembered why I couldn't handle these two. "Cut the creepy twins bull and I'll think about it." 

   "Not--" 

   "--a chance." 

   "Let me go, you dumb fuckers." 

   Fin cleared his throat. "Mind--" 

   "--your language." 

   "I get it; you're psychic! Talk like a normal set of twins, for God's sake." 

   Trace looked thoughtfully at his brother, who returned the look. It seemed as though they were telepathically deliberating on, first of all, whether or not they should speak one sentence per person; and second, allowing that the first part of the conjecture was true, who should do the speaking first. 

   "We need to speak with you about your investigation, Problem Sleuth," Trace finally said. I sensed that some great telepathic battle over a birthright had taken place right in front of my eyes. 

   Fin nodded. "We must assert our innocence." 

   I felt like opening the door and just rolling out into traffic. It would spare me the slow death of trying to wrangle any information-- or even any conversation that didn't make my head spin-- out of these two. "I know you're innocent." 

   Fin and Trace looked at each other. "You do?" they said, simultaneously. 

   I didn't, actually, but as long as Fin had that gun trained on me, wild horses couldn't get me to say so. "Of course." 

   "What makes you so sure?" Trace asked. 

   "How do you know?" 

   I hastily cobbled together something that could pass as an excuse for not having all the facts. "Well, you both know who really did it. God knows you don't get along." 

   There. That should do it. No one in the Felt liked the twins much, from what I knew of them, because they tended to spend time with each other rather than anyone else. That left me just enough wiggle room to back away quickly if I was wrong-- and if I was lucky, it gave them enough room to slip up and give me a hint, if they really did know who'd killed Clubs Deuce. And if they didn't know, then they surely wouldn't admit to it. They wouldn't want to lose face. It was a win-win situation for me. I was proud of myself. 

   Fin nodded. "True." 

   "Yes, it is true." 

   "Then you see why it'd be prudent to let me go." 

   "We don't want to." 

   "We need you to do something for us." 

   I was this close to saying something fresh and letting Fin cap me a good one. I figured it would be better for everyone involved if I held on a little longer and tried to drag some more information out of them as carefully as I could. 

   "So, uh," I began, with no real idea where I was going. "What are you g--" 

   "We're not going to tell you anything right away, if that's what you're thinking." 

   "And we know that's what you're thinking." 

   I decided to keep my big mouth shut before I dug a hole I had no way to climb out of-- or before Fin dug a hole for me and threw me in it, dead. 

   It was easily the quietest, most tense car ride I'd ever participated in. It wasn't difficult to stay silent because those two used their telepathic abilities to communicate between one another. Show-offs. God knew they wanted no conversation with me. I had no idea where the driver was taking the car, and I didn't think asking would have been a good idea. I was entirely at their mercy. I didn't like it one bit. 

   "We're taking you to the Manor," Trace volunteered, after a few minutes. 

   "There's no need to be alarmed." 

   "We want to help you, Problem Sleuth." 

   "Let us help you." 

   I leaned against the car door and crossed my ankles. If they wanted to help me, they'd damned well do it, and there was nothing I could do to dissuade them. "Die took me there last night. To the vault." 

   "Oh?" they asked. 

   "And was he much help?" Trace continued. 

   "He gave me one Hell of a temporal hangover," I muttered. "Which you two have been no help in getting rid of, by the way." 

   Trace grimaced; Fin smirked and intoned, waving his pistol, "You forget, Problem Sleuth, that we are in charge here until further notice." 

   I rolled my eyes. "Right. Of course." 

   "What did Die show you?" Trace asked, deadpan. I had a feeling he was stricter than Fin when it came to reckless threats, but that neither of them would waste any time getting his hands on that gun if I were to speak out of turn again. 

   "I saw..." What had I seen? Everything had sort of blurred together due to the headache I was trying (and failing) to manage. "Right after the murder, before Snowman got there. Clubs Deuce. Missing his organs. Blood on the door to the cellar. Scorches on the floor." 

   The twins exchanged a glance; probably they were wondering the same thing as I was: what would Matchsticks want with Clubs Deuce? I hoped they had some idea, because I surely didn't. 

   "We were with Matchsticks on the night of the murder, so he can't be guilty," Fin said. "And I would have seen him if he'd left at any time." 

   Trace shot a peevish glance at his brother-- probably for using a first-person pronoun that wasn't "we". I got the feeling that these two did nearly everything together, and it seemed as though maybe Fin had been pushing Trace's buttons as of late. I wasn't the best at reading body language, especially with people I'd only seen briefly (once, at midnight, while running away from the Manor at a high speed with Diamonds Droog.) If I was clever, I could play them off one another and get some more information. 

   "Matchsticks was with us the whole time, until Clover left." 

   That still gave him the opportunity to jump through a fire that may have been started there in the past-- he needn't have necessarily been present at the crime scene. He could have started the fire in the past to obscure the evidence that would eventually be there in the future, and he could have done it even after the murder occurred. Namely, he could have started a fire in the vault (with Clover's help, before the murder under the pretense of something else.) Then, he could have put it out. Finally, he could have started a fire somewhere else, jumped through it temporally to the fire that had happened before the murder, and assisted the murderer with his crime. The whole vicious circle made my head reel. 

   "That alibi's useless," I said, and explained my reasoning. I used small words, but something told me they'd have known exactly what I meant if I'd used the biggest ten dollar words I could find. They may have relied on each other to have enough brain cells to function, but they understood time perfectly. Despite all this, the sharks looked at each other like confused goldfish-- vacuously, with no idea what had just been explained to them. They looked like they'd probably forget it in three seconds. I wondered if it was all just an act. 

   "We still have reason to believe he didn't do it." 

   "Yeah?" 

   "We--" Fin glared at his twin. "I was _with_ him-- and I can see where people are going to go, remember?" Maybe they _didn't _do everything together. Interesting. It seemed as though there was a little something-something I wasn't meant to be aware of._ _

   "So? Why should I care what you do in your spare time?" 

   "On the subject of my brother's abilities," Trace said, yanking the conversation back onto its route like a horse-and-buggy driver whose pony was just a little too independent, "we recommend against going back up to your office immediately after you depart the Manor." 

   "Why?" 

   "Your rotund business partner has returned from his vacation and is about to discover the location of his telephone." 

   I swore, eliciting frowns from both of them. 

   "We really wish--" 

   "--you'd mind your language." 

   I rolled my eyes and sighed. Anything to stop the finishing-each-other's-sentences shtick. "What do you need me to do, anyway?" 

   "That will be revealed in due time." 

   I decided not to try asking any more stupid questions. They say there aren't stupid questions, really-- only stupid answers. I was a living example of that being absolutely, one hundred percent true. If everyone had to deal with the idiots I put up with on a near-daily basis, the world would be a much more violent place. It was lucky for them that I had a more neutral temper than Droog, or Slick, or Ace, or... Huh. I'd never really realized how many incredibly unstable people I thought of as acquaintances. Maybe that reflected something about my psyche, but if it did, I didn't care to hear it. I was too busy. 

   After a while, the car seemed to stop. I tried to keep track of where it had turned, but had given up somewhere along Fifteenth Street. I wasn't terribly gifted when it came to spatial thinking; I usually left that to the Inspector. The man was absolutely gifted at sudoku, not to mention the classic Rubik's Cube. I'd seen him do things to a cube that perhaps no man had ever accomplished before. 

   Anyway, I was pretty sure we were parked in back of the Manor. 

   Trace nudged my leg with his foot. "Get up." 

   I wasted no time in getting to an awkward half-crouch and waiting for one of them to open the door. It was probably not a good idea to try opening it myself. To my surprise, the driver was the one who actually opened the door, from the outside-- and it was Itchy, just like I'd suspected. Only _he_ could drive like a maniac and still manage to avoid getting everyone killed. I wasn't really sure why he was in cahoots with Trace and Fin, or where Doze, who usually tagged along with Itchy, might have been. 

   "Keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle until it comes to a complete stop," Itchy rattled off, helping me to my feet outside the car, "and enjoy your stay in the Magic Kingdom, ladies and germs." 

   Trace glared at him, deadpan. "Thank you, Itchy." 

   Itchy looked almost offended, as if he was used to being told slightly less polite things. "Hey, don't mention it, man," he said. I got the feeling he meant it literally. 

   I looked around; I'd never been in the garage here before. I'd tried, once, but that was the night that the sharks almost caught Droog, Slick, Ace, and me snooping around. I preferred not to think about that, and I was pretty sure Droog did too. I didn't want to know Ace's opinion on it-- but, lucky me, he loved to bring it up at every possible opportunity. 

   Itchy barked a short laugh in an attempt to change the subject. "So where are we taking this ugly mug, anyw--" 

   "You're late, Itchy," said a voice behind us. Itchy whirled around was preparing to say something stupid before he realized who it was. Probably his witty riposte would have been something he thought was terribly clever, but in reality ranked among the top ten list of the dumbest things ever said. The entire list could have been populated with Itchy's awful one-liners, to be honest. He had exactly the kind of childish sense of humor that was a tad too juvenile for me to stomach. 

   "You're late," the voice repeated. 

   "Sorry, Miss Snowman," Itchy said, sheepishly. 

   I felt a kind of grim satisfaction in seeing him with his metaphorical tail tucked between his legs. If anyone could knock his stupid jokes down a peg, it was Snowman. 

   "Trace, Fin." 

   "Yes, ma'am." the brothers said. 

   "Take Itchy inside. Parlor. He is to wait for instructions. Understood?" 

   "Yes, ma'am." 

   I was kind of apprehensive about being alone in the garage with Snowman, where she could have utilized any number of instruments present to make quick work of me-- tire iron, jumper cables, herself... The list went on. To my surprise, as soon as her three underlings had left, she sat on the hood of the car and offered me a cigarette-- one of Droog's. 

   "How did you get this?" I asked. 

   "I ran out. He gave me some of his. He tells me you're fond of them." 

   I didn't believe it, but I didn't care. If they were pals it was none of my business. I took the cigarette, and she lit it for me. "What are you being so cordial for?" 

   Snowman genuinely smiled, a friendly gesture that looked out of place on her cruel, sharp features. "They say you get more flies with honey." 

   Well, I supposed that was true. Even if it was jarring and strange and downright unnatural, I preferred Snowman being nice to Snowman killing somebody. 

   "What kind of flies are you looking to get?" I asked. 

   "The kind that stop Clover being a damn trainwreck. He's hardly eaten anything since it happened. He's sulking. Won't talk to me; won't talk to anybody."  Snowman crossed her ankles and lit a cigarette of her own. She placed it in the end of her cigarette-holder, which I was almost sure must have doubled as a weapon of some sort. No one should be allowed to possess any single object with so much class. She called it a 'quellazaire', presumably from the language she'd spoken when she was thigh-deep in johns every Saturday night as a part of her queen act before she'd been given the boot. I called it almost maddeningly attractive. 

   She placed the _quellazaire_ between her lips and sighed again. 

   "Fair enough," I managed. I probably should have reined in my staring a little, but she was a work of positively bloodthirsty beauty and deserved to be admired as such. 

   I didn't know exactly what her relationship with Clover was, but she seemed to care more about him than she did about most of the Felt. If she wanted me to give greater priority to part of the case that pertained to her, then I would. It wasn't helping anything, but it wasn't harming it either. 

   "I'm not supposed to be giving hints," Snowman said, "but I can tell you those two are telling the truth when they say Matchsticks is innocent." I didn't know what she meant by 'hints', or who had forbidden her from giving them, but I wasn't complaining. 

   "How do I know you're telling the truth?" 

   She blew her smoke at me. "Do you really think I'd go to this much trouble to make up a false alibi for Matchsticks, of all people?" 

   Matchsticks was probably innocent because Snowman hated him. Very few people I knew could say that and understand the full depth of what it meant. His style of violence was entirely too informal for her. Not that she'd ever killed anyone that I knew of, but she liked to get in close and get her victim right where she wanted them before she killed them nice and quietly. Almost intimately. She wouldn't have wasted effort trying to frame someone because no jury on the planet would dare to convict her anyway. It wouldn't be worth the effort to cover for somebody. 

   "Don't suppose you can give me any hints as to who actually did it." 

   Snowman was quiet for such a long time that I wasn't sure if she'd even heard me. I was about to repeat my question when she said, "I would take another look at that box of yours. Ask Diamonds what he knows about counting. Take a look at what you know about my boys, too." 

   That told me almost nothing, but I couldn't let her know that. She'd told me to consult with Droog about the equation he hadn't been able to solve and re-examine my profiles of the Felt. I suddenly understood jack shit. I was effectively right back at square _número uno_ , and I was this close to telling her she was no help at all-- but I was cut off by a screaming demon in the form of Itchy. "Miss Snowman! Miss Snowman!" I heard him before he was even in the garage. I pictured him barreling down the hallway, knocking aside any innocent bystanders, which probably wasn't too far from the truth. 

   Snowman exhaled the last of her smoke and put her cigarette out. "What now," she said under her breath. 

   "Miss Snowman! it's Trace, he-- oh, come look!" Itchy finally burst through the door, pointing wildly behind himself. 

   Snowman glanced at me as she slid off the hood of the car, which I took as an invitation to follow her. 

   What had happened to Trace? I couldn't make out anything Itchy was saying because he was spitting out words at a hundred miles an hour. Snowman looked peeved, but at least she'd had practice understanding him. 

   "What's he saying?" I asked, almost clinging to her coattails. Itchy was running down the long, long hallway and stopping every once in a while to make sure we were still following, and Snowman was walking doubletime. She was embarrassingly taller than me, so her stride was longer. I was struggling to keep up. 

   "Trace is dead." She held up her hand to stop me interrupting her and continued, "Fin's damn near beside himself; it looked like... Like the same thing that happened to Clubs." 

   "Oh, my God." This changed everything. For one, Fin was now a suspect based on the little exchange I'd witnessed in the car-- he was clearly upset with his brother for not allowing him the autonomy to do things on his own. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, it gave me a chance to have a look at a crime scene that was almost identical to the one where Deuce had died. 

   Itchy's mad dash ended us up in a parlor that couldn't possibly have fit inside the Manor as it appeared from the outside. I decided not to question it in favor of goggling at the awful scene in front of me. 

   Fin was pacing back and forth, holding his hat in his hands. His red hair showed signs that he'd recently been running his fingers through it worriedly. He looked just about as upset as anyone could possibly be, having been close by during his brother's death. Never mind him being a suspect-- this was a man absolutely consumed with grief. For him to be a repeat offender was unthinkable. 

   Itchy rushed over to Fin and did his level best to comfort him. I got the feeling he didn't do that terribly often, because the gesture came off as stiff and forced. 

   "God." Snowman. She didn't attempt to avert her eyes like a dame normally would from a grisly view. In her heyday, she'd probably caused worse mayhem than this before breakfast. I refrained from commenting on it. 

   "I'll say." 

   Trace was-- or had been, considering his death-- sitting on one of the green armchairs in the parlor. The chair was mostly stained red, now. His chest was opened up the same way Deuce's had been, and his heart was gone. The only difference seemed to be that his other organs were still there. I guess it's hard to disembowel somebody in ten minutes; the killer must have absconded before either of the boys who'd been in here-- Itchy and Fin-- could see who it was. If it was the same person who'd killed Clubs Deuce, though, why would he need to run away? I was working under the impression that the Felt all knew who'd done it, but maybe I'd been horribly mistaken. That would certainly explain why Trace's corpse was cut up differently: the killer hadn't had the time because he needed to get away before anyone could see him. 

   I edged closer and tried to remember what I'd seen last night. The victim was sitting on the floor, and there was blood on the door behind him... Whatever'd happened, he'd been standing when he was attacked and had slid down the door. It looked like Trace had been sitting in the chair the whole time. Had this murder been committed by the same perpetrator, or was it just a copycat? Was anyone else in danger? My mind was racing as I tried to consider every possibility simultaneously. That was getting me nowhere. I had to slow down and think of things one at a time, or I'd be too confused to know which way was up. 

   Itchy was gesturing towards me, trying to get Fin to look away from the corpse and at me instead. I couldn't make out what he was saying because he was speaking too quickly. Fin nodded at him, then put his hat back on and crossed the floor to stand by Snowman and me. He was careful not to slip on any of the blood. "We don't know how to respond to this," he said. 

   I looked at Snowman, then back at Fin. "I hate to tell you this, pal, but your duo's down to one." 

   Fin fiddled with his jacket buttons sulkily. "We don't care." 

   "Awful shame. You two were close, huh." 

   "Yes." Fin hesitated; looked at Snowman, then at me. I sensed a trend developing. He continued, more quietly. "We saw his future trail ending but we thought it was as a result of-- of switching timelines. We never thought--" 

   Poor guy. He'd always had his brother there to keep him on the straight and narrow, and now he was on his own. I knew how that was. I thought I had the best friends ever in the force, but when I got kicked out, they were the first ones welcoming my replacement. Sure, it was a little different-- most of them were still alive, for one thing-- but the idea was the same. We'd both lost some awfully important people in one way or another, and that hurt in ways nothing else could. 

   "You must find out who did this to us," Fin said. 

   Just then, Matchsticks came flying down the stairs across the room and nearly landed right on top of the body in the chair. He disentangled himself from the other various furniture and looked around, bewildered, as if somehow he'd found himself in the middle of a crime scene. Which he had. 

   "Where's the fire?" Snowman muttered, glancing sidelong at me. I smirked, but it faded when I remembered where I was. What a sense of humor, to be joking five feet away from a dead comrade. 

   "What happened here?" 

   Fin just sort of stared at him, then over at Trace. "We think that's... a little obvious." 

   "Lands." Matchsticks took off his monocle, wiped it down, and put it back on. He squinted at the body in the chair. "Is that Trace?" 

   "Yes." 

   Matchsticks patted Fin on the shoulder. "There, there, now." 

   It seemed like his ostensibly half-hearted consolation was actually working; Fin tore his eyes away from his dead brother and stared at his shoes instead. Matchsticks locked eyes with me, then glanced over at the body. I figured he wanted me to start investigating, fast-- and then get out. I couldn't understand why none of the Felt seemed to like me all that much. Maybe it was because I dealt with the Midnight Crew so much. 

   I didn't know what Fin's exact relationship with Matchsticks was, but something told me they were pretty close. Not as close as Fin had been with Trace, but close enough that maybe Fin went to Matchsticks when he was fed up with something ridiculous his brother had said or done. I'd read an interesting article about twins a while ago; it said they either spent every waking moment together or hated each other. I wondered if maybe these loan-shark brothers hadn't been part of the second category, but had tried to cover it up. That certainly seemed to me like what Trace had been insisting on doing with the whole 'we' thing. It came off as kind of forced and weird, and he'd been awfully upset when Fin'd tried to exhibit any sort of independence. 

   "Seems like you've got everything under control, Problem Sleuth," Snowman said, pulling me out of my musings. She began to walk towards the long hallway that led outside. 

   "Where are you going?" I asked. She stopped. "Don't go. They'll eat me alive." 

   "I'll be back eventually. You have my..." She paused. "...Explicit permission to maim somebody if anyone bothers you. And don't worry-- Cans is the only one who eats people." Somehow, I knew she was smirking as she slinked down the hallway. I had no idea whether or not she was joking. Something told me she liked it better that way.


	8. Calling Trump

   I figured I'd better keep my head down as long as I could, at least until Snowman got back-- if she got back. Thankfully Matchsticks was too busy _there, there_ -ing Fin to pose much of a threat to me and my limbs, digits, etc. I had to wonder what the deal was between those two, but this was no time to find out. I was here to sleuth a murder-- two murders, now. 

   I'd never really been terribly crackerjack when it came to forensics, but they'd let me do my fair share of poking around crime scenes during my time on the force. Not that I'd ever been any real help. What was it they'd said about me? Ah, yes: impulsive, reckless, messy, sloppy... the list went on and on and on. And on. I got the point well enough, and from then on I was content to stay at a desk most of the time. I did have to get out once in a while, though, and it was during those rare occasions that I actually every learned anything about the CSIs and what they did. 

   The primary concern was to keep all the evidence as pristine as possible. If you touched anything-- and I mean _anything_ \-- without permission from the scene's overseer, you were the next corpse they were going to have to look over. Okay, maybe it wasn't _that_ serious, but they did take things awful personally when it came to contamination of the scene. The first rule was that you didn't touch anything. The second rule was that you didn't touch _anything_. 

   The third rule was that evidence was the foremost concern. Assuming you'd been given permission to touch anything (which was unlikely), you were to bag it, catalog it, and give it to some lackey to stuff in a box and put in the back of whatever car had been driven to the scene. I didn't have any bags with me, but then I wasn't on the force anymore. I was what they liked to call "completely fucking insane" when it came to being a "team player" or whatever they called it, which, come to think of it, was probably part of the reason I'd been booted off in the first place. I made a note to think about it later, when I wasn't knee-deep in dead green torso. 

   The scene was relatively undisturbed, which made my job a lot easier. I remembered almost nothing from my days in the force, which made my job a lot more difficult. I bet I looked like some kind of idiot, standing there staring at everything. It was to my benefit that everyone else in the room was distracted. 

   Or almost everyone, anyway. 

   Itchy was on my heels like a puppy that wanted to play fetch while its master was doing something a lot more important. (I wondered how often he got compared to a puppy. It seemed like an apt comparison.) If he wasn't trying to peer over my shoulder and look at the body, he was doing his level best to trip me. If he wasn't trying to trip me, he was trying to get my attention some other way. I couldn't stand it. 

   "For God's sake, Itchy, what do you want?" 

   "I wanna help, obviously!" 

   "Kid, if I need your help, I'll ask for it." 

   "But Sleuth--" 

   "My God, how old are you, twelve? Go sit down and behave yourself." I paused. If he was going to insist on helping, I could at least teach him the rules of the crime scene. "And don't touch anything." 

   "Don't touch _anything_?" The kid looked like-- like a puppy that had been kicked. It just seemed natural to compare him to something small and hyperactive with little to no bladder control. 

   "Did I stutter?" I said. 

   "No, but--" 

   I threw my hands up, exasperated. "Fine! Go over _there_ \--" I put my hands on his shoulders and steered him behind the chair where Trace was. "And look for something that might be important." 

   "How will I know if it's important?" 

   "Just tell me if you find anything!" 

   I was becoming my old boss. Somehow I didn't think that boded well for anyone else present at the scene. At least I was capable of defending myself if anybody decided to give me any lip for it. I'd seen people lose teeth for back-talking the Chief. 

   Itchy retreated behind the big armchair with his tail between his legs. That left me free to get some actual work done. 

   I pulled a notebook out of my jacket pocket. I'd taken it from Droog's room on an impulse; I wondered how long it would take him to realize it was gone, and what would happen when he did. I'd also made sure to take the pencil I'd left bite-marks in absentmindedly; he wouldn't want that back anyway. He was just as uptight about things being returned in their proper condition as Pickle Inspector was, if not moreso. So a pencil with chunks out of it was not desirable in the slightest. 

   I began to take notes on the scene in front of me-- and on the scene of Clubs Deuce's murder. I started with what was the same: both victims were missing their hearts; there was a massive amount of blood in the surrounding areas of both murders; both victims were close to someone relatively powerful. In Deuce's case, the power manifested itself physically in Hearts Boxcars, who acted as a bodyguard. The man was, from what I'd heard, nothing short of anything from a tank buster to an H-bomb, not to mention a literal cannibal who must have stood at least 6'8". I had no idea where the Crew had picked him up at. I didn't want to know. 

   Trace's connection to power was a little more subtle. He and Fin must have been, at some point, or maybe at every point, considering their unique temporal abilities, elbow-deep in every financial institution in the city. This meant that they could buy the loyalty of just about anybody whose mind they could read-- which, conveniently enough, was the general populace of wealthy no-life scum that called Midnight City home. They were like fat little kings of their own shady business. It would almost have been commendable if it had been legal. 

   That brought me to the differences between the scenes. What was present in one scene and missing from the other? Clubs Deuce was missing all his organs; Trace was only missing his heart. Whether the murderer was getting sloppy after his first kill or simply hadn't had enough time, I didn't know, and I didn't want to wait until someone else got killed to find out. I was going to have to make an executive decision on it sometime soon. Maybe it was even a deliberate hint at something, this difference between the scenes. Knowing the kinds of tricks the Felt like to pull. I thought back to the brief glimpse I'd seen of the first crime scene. My head hurt to think about the awful hangover I'd gotten from my little trip into the past, but I had to remember every detail or I'd just be getting nowhere some more. It was frustrating. 

   So, what was different? I closed my eyes and tried to see in a color that wasn't green. 

   Clubs Deuce's hat was the first thing that stuck out to me. It wasn't there, but Trace's was still firmly on his head. These fellas took their hats very seriously, so whoever'd killed Deuce had taken his hat to serve a very specific purpose. It was a challenge to the Midnight Crew. Perhaps he hadn't taken Trace's because, even though he'd gone and murdered him, the man was still the closest thing he had to a family. 

   Gangs were weird. 

   The next thing that concerned me was-- 

   "Hey, Sleuth! I think I found something!" Itchy only had one volume, and it was inappropriately loud at all times. I checked to make sure my ears weren't bleeding and ducked my head behind the chair. 

   "What." 

   "I found this little pin shaped like-- a clover or something. I can't tell." 

   I stopped dead in my tracks and froze like an unfortunate deer caught in a pair of headlights. "Give me that," I said, holding my hand out. It must have been the look in my eye that told him to hand it over without arguing about it, because he did just that. Normally he, or really anyone else in the Felt, would have raised a big ruckus about having to listen to me when I wasn't even part of his chain of command. 

   The pin was a small thing; too small to be a brooch but too big to be an earring. It was shaped like a three-leafed clover or the suit of clubs. The reference to Clover's and Clubs Deuce's friendship was obvious. I wondered if it belonged to Deuce; and if it had, how it had ended up here. The most obvious and logical assumption was that the murderer had planted it. But in that case, what did it have to do with Trace? I had to know, and I didn't want to wait. If it meant disturbing Clover again, so be it. 

   "Matchsticks," I said, "I need to talk to Clover." 

   "Young Master Clover is indisposed momentarily," Matchsticks replied, without even looking away from Fin. Young master? The kid was twenty-two, for goodness' sake. I hadn't heard anybody called 'young master' since I got out of boarding school. 

   "It's important," I said. 

   "That is of no import to _me_ , I assure you." 

   "'Sticks," Fin said, almost pleadingly. He sounded tired. "Let him talk to Clover. Please." 

   Matchsticks looked down at Fin, who was crossing his arms petulantly. The height difference between them was kind of mind-boggling, to be honest. Matchsticks had to be almost as tall as Hearts Boxcars, if not exactly as tall. The only difference between them was Matchsticks was skinny as a rail. 

   But that didn't matter. I was getting distracted by little things again. If I wanted to make any sense of anything, I was going to have to stay focused. 

   "Mister Itchy," Matchsticks said, almost disgustedly. He seemed rather put off by the idea of talking to someone with a number as low at Itchy's-- number one-- let alone calling him _mister_. I found it kind of funny that he was such good buddies with number five. "Go and fetch young Master Clover, would you?" 

   Itchy knew when not to argue. Sure, Matchsticks might have been behaving himself for now, but Itchy had seen the way I got stared at right when the tall man showed up. He knew nobody was in too good a mood, and it seemed he didn't want to push what little luck he had. 

   It took almost no time at all for him to return with a very upset-looking Clover. I assumed he'd gone and told him what had happened in the parlor and then dragged him downstairs anyway without waiting for poor Clover to say yes or no. What a dumb lug. 

   "Hi there, Clover," I said, trying to stand in front of the body to protect the poor kid from seeing any more than he had to. 

   "Hi, Detective Elroy." His voice sounded weak as a kitten, as if he hadn't been keeping up his strength too well in the past couple of days. I almost felt sorry for him before I remembered that that was exactly what his influence over luck would have wanted me to do. I couldn't possible suspect the kid, not the way he looked now, but I didn't want to cross anything off my list without somebody else saying he was innocent. "I guess something bad happened to Mister Trace." 

   "Yeah," I said. "Somebody killed him just to make a point. I think whoever did it was trying to get my attention with this." I held up the pin and twisted it between my fingers so that it caught the light. "Do you know who this belongs to?" 

   "Sure; I gave it to Deuce for our birthday a couple years ago. Did Mister Trace have it?" 

   "Yeah, I think so." That or the murderer had put it there in a twisted attempt to give me some kind of clue. Well, this was what I had. I had Clover. What I was supposed to do with him, I didn't know. Maybe I was supposed to string him up and wear him around my neck like a good-luck charm. God knows it would have made about as much sense as anything else I knew about this case-- which wasn't much to begin with. 

   "That's... weird." 

   "Don't I know it." 

   "I don't know why Mister Trace would have had Deuce's pin, but it looks like he still has his hat." 

   "I noticed. I think whoever killed him left it there because they're both Felt." 

   "That would make sense. We never touch each other's hats, Detective Elroy. Never." 

   I wasn't well-versed on this particular little group's idiosyncratic superstitions, but as far as I knew they held hats as damn near sacred. This new revelation (which was really more of a confirmation of something I'd already suspected) positively cemented the killer as one of the Felt. 

   I didn't want to keep Clover around the crime scene for any longer than I absolutely had to. Something told me it would be alright to take him outside and walk around for a while. 

   "Clover, how would you like to go for a walk?"

   Matchsticks glared at me disapprovingly. Doubtless he didn't want me going anywhere near any of the Felt he actually tolerated when he wasn't around to voice his distaste of me. "I can't let you do that. 

   "Mister Matchsticks, please?" Clover tilted his head and looked up at Matchsticks, drawing out the _e_ in please. He was short enough and small enough that he looked almost exactly like a child begging its parent for something completely inane. Maybe it was just luck, but Matchsticks' face softened a little. It seemed like he couldn't bring himself to say no to the kid, no matter how much he wanted to. 

   "Fine." He turned to me. "Fifteen minutes, Mister Elroy." The way he said _mister_ thinly veneered a deep-seated dislike and distrust of detectives of all kinds. I figured he'd been accused of arson enough times by all the detectives on the force that it was beginning to give him something of a complex. 

   I couldn't help smirking at Matchsticks on my way out of the parlor, as ill-advised as it was. It seemed like the only thing stopping him flaring up and dumping kerosene all over everything was Fin nearly clinging to his jacket and Clover making his way down the hallway in front of me. It was dangerous, but I kind of liked it that way. 

   My fifteen minutes were defined by an irascible man with an inclination towards senseless violence and arson, so I knew I had to use them wisely. I doubted Clover was going to give up much information voluntarily-- if he even actually knew anything. He'd seemed awfully confused about Trace having Deuce's pin. Whether he was faking it or he'd legitimately not been able to make the connection between the two murders, I didn't know. 

   "Do you know of anybody who had any arguments going on with Trace?" I asked, following Clover out of the garage. I didn't know where he was going. 

   "Nobody really liked Mister Trace and Mister Fin." 

   "I know, I know-- but was there anybody specific?" 

   "Well... Mister Crowbar and Mister Fin had a fight the other day." 

   Really? Now that was interesting. A classic way to get revenge: go after the belligerent's weak spot, whatever it may be. In this case, the target was ostensibly the most important thing to him: his big brother. 

   It was almost elegant... Completely unlike Crowbar. What kind of nonsense was this kid trying to feed me? Either Crowbar wasn't the murderer or he was working with someone else. 

   Clover stopped walking and I found myself almost face-to-face with Snowman. 

   We were standing under what had to be the biggest oak tree I'd ever seen. Snowman was leaning on its massive trunk smoking a cigarette; a book and a bottle of wine were propped up by her feet. My guess was she'd been reading before she saw that Clover was crossing the yard with me in tow. 

   Clover took his hat off and held it to his body with both hands, like a child hugging a stuffed toy. "Miss Snowman, Mister Matchsticks was being rude to Detective Elroy." 

   Snowman smirked. It was almost a smile. "Don't let that bother you, baby doll." She tousled Clover's bright red hair and he beamed up at her like a child. I forgot sometimes that he was only ten or so years younger than I was. It felt like I was intruding on an intimate moment shared between something like a mother and son. I didn't know why she was so attached to him, but I figured it had to be at least vaguely similar to the way Hearts Boxcars had been attached to Clubs Deuce. 

   "He was just being the way he always does," I said. "He must be a riot at parties." I paused. "Oh, well. Could be worse. It could've been an outright threat, the kind Quarters gives." 

   "That's only Quarters' way of being friendly," Snowman said snidely. "If he didn't like you, you wouldn't be around to know about it." 

   "Ah, yes," I said. "The classic 'pleased to meet you; I'm going to murder your family' greeting. I hear it's customary in several small East Asian countries." 

   "Mister Quarters has no filter," Clover chimed. It kind of surprised me. "He's just a big bully most of the time. He's nice to me, though." 

   "That's because you could make him accidentally drop your coin and have it land face-up for him, little one," Snowman said, her voice as smooth as dark chocolate. Somehow she always managed to sound like that, so calm, so in charge, even when she was saying absolutely morbid things. She was a dame who had no qualms talking about death and killing. I'd only ever heard her raise her voice once, and every time I remembered it it made me shake so badly that I wasn't even going to attempt it here and now. 

   Clover smiled beatifically. "I'm glad I'm lucky. I don't think I could handle everybody being mean to me otherwise, since I'm so little." 

   The kid was too perfect. It was terrifying. 

   I had no idea what kind of information I was supposed to be looking for. Whoever'd killed Trace was almost certainly telling me to talk to Clover, but he'd neglected to tell me just what the Hell I was looking for. 

   I figured I had only one option left at that point, and I wasted no time in diving in without testing how deep the water was first. If I drowned, I drowned. I wasn't so sure I cared either way. I felt like going for a swim-- and why not? It was a great day, except for being partly cloudy with a slight chance of being murdered in the late afternoon. 

   "Snowman," I said. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" 

   Snowman narrowed her kohl-ringed green eyes at me. She'd have looked like a skeptical raccoon if she didn't pull the look off so damn well. The wind shook the leaves of the oak tree. "It depends." 

   "Of course it does." 

   "I can't help you with your case." She blew smoke at me for what must have been at least the third time that day. "Couldn't if I wanted to." 

   "I'm not asking you to." Yes, I was. I was trying to, anyway. "I was wondering if you wanted to, uh, to do lunch sometime." 

   I didn't know who I was trying to kid or what kind of trouble I was trying to get myself into. I didn't have a chance with a dame like her, not half a change, even if she probably would have gone out with nearly anybody just to spite Spades Slick. 

   "I'm afraid I can't do that, Sleuth," she said, after a long period of internal deliberation. 

   "Why not, Miss Snowman?" Clover asked. He was crouched on the ground near the tree, running his fingers through the grass. Of course-- he was looking for four-leafed clovers. I didn't have the heart to tell the poor kid that every time you pick a four-leafed clover, you destroy its chance of passing on its four-leafed mutation to future generation clovers. Every time you take some luck for yourself, you screw everyone else over just a tiny bit. "Detective Elroy has been very kind to me even though he doesn't have to be. You should do something nice for him." 

   Snowman smiled-- a real, honest-to-God smile, not a smirk-- and sat down next to Clover. "Baby doll, there are some things I just can't do. You'll understand when you get a little older." Even though this was addressed to Clover, I couldn't help feeling a part of it was meant for me, too. 

   Ouch. Doubly rejected. 

   Clover frowned, trying to figure it out. "That isn't fair at all," 

   "No," Snowman said. "No, most things aren't." 

   "Will you read to me?" Clover asked, picking up the book Snowman had been reading from before I'd taken my walk with Clover. I found it hard to believe he was an adult. He certainly acted more like a child. He had to have been the most innocent person I'd ever met. 

   "Of course," Snowman said. She half-smiled up at me from her spot under the tree. "I'd say you were welcome to join us, but Diamonds and Spades will have you taxidermied if you don't get this case done." 

   "Yeah," I said. "I'll catch up later." 

   Snowman began to read. " _Rose took a step toward Kanaya and tried to help her up, but found that the girl's legs didn't seem to want to cooperate. 'Karkat, can you help me?' she asked. How was I supposed to respond to that? We were both clearly shocked from the force of the blast. I didn't see how helping Kanaya off the ground was going to do any good..._ " 

   I made my way back toward the mansion and didn't waste any time doing it. Something told me Matchsticks would be after me if I was late, and that he'd bring friends. Violent friends who had no regard for the simple fact that it's horribly rude to murder your guests. 

   I didn't know how to get to the parlor through any way except the garage, so I took that route. I made a mental note to procure a map at some point. I was sure the Midnight Crew had several to spare. It would be far easier to simply "borrow" one from Droog than to attempt to take one from the Felt proper. 

   When I got back, Matchsticks looked very impatient. He was standing almost in the doorway, glaring at the watch in his hand as though it had insulted his mother's honor. 

   "You're late," was the first thing he said. I wasn't late. The second thing he said was a rudely worded inquiry as to the location of one young Master Clover. 

   "He's out in the yard with Snowman. Calm down or you'll probably burst from hating everything so much." 

   Matchsticks ignored my incredibly helpful advice. He was more concerned about all the misfortunes that might have befallen Clover in the dangerous place they called the back yard. "Fin?" 

   "He'll be back soon," Fin said. It seemed like he was examining the kid's future trail, and apparently it ended up in here a few minutes from now. That must have been one boring book Snowman was reading him. Or maybe he just had a short attention span and she had the patience to put up with it. 

   Matchsticks shrugged angrily. I had no idea that was a thing people could even do. He turned to me and said, "Get out." The addendum "you're not welcome here" wasn't verbalized, but it was there nonetheless. I knew how to take a hint. I didn't want to wake up and find my office on fire, so I shuffled down the long hallway. I didn't stop to wave to Clover on the way out, even though he passed me just outside the garage. I had a feeling Matchsticks wouldn't have appreciated that too much.


	9. The Jack of Diamonds

   I didn't want to go back to the office if what Trace and Fin had said about Ace having come home was true. It would be absolutely impossible to convince Ace that I'd stolen his telephone for a good reason; he thought everything I did wasn't for any kind of reason at all. Maybe sometimes he had a point, but by and large I had a method and I stuck to it. If I'd taken one good thing away from my time in the force, it had to be that it was best to keep some kind of routine. People who didn't keep a routine went crazy, seeing all the things you see in a place like that. I liked to think I was still falsifiably sane, for the most part. There had to be some kind of test for that; sanity, I mean. Put a man in a maze and see if he runs it like one of those little albino lab rats with snow-white fur and pink eyes. If he spends more time going for the cheese than he does looking at himself in the mirrors that line the maze's twists and turns, he's probably alright. If he stares at himself and doesn't seek any kind of reward, he's too far gone to worry about saving. 

   I realized without wanting to that Diamonds Droog reminded me of a rat that stared at itself. Snowman, too. They had their reasons, sure, but the conclusion still held water. I wondered if Deuce and Trace were the kind of rat that went for the cheese. Now I'd never know. No one who hadn't known them ever would. 

   As I walked along the unfamiliar streets in the Manor's neighborhood, taking wrong turns on purpose to avoid going home, I realized it was getting dark. How long had I spent at the Felt Manor? It hit me hard when I discovered I didn't know. Maybe there was some kind of temporal field that surrounded the place and made time flow differently there. If anybody asked where I'd disappeared to for most of the day, that was my story and I was going to stick to it. They had no way of proving me right or wrong; it was win-win either way. 

   I would have to go home and talk to Ace eventually; I knew that much. But I wanted to spend as much time looking in the mirror as I could handle. 

   When I was jonesing for the kind of straight-up talk that makes the dames on television drop to their knees and beg the hard-boiled private eye to take their case, there was one person I knew I could always turn to: one D. Droog. I hated to bother him so much in one day, but leaving the Manor by myself with life and limb intact left me with a hankering for the relatively safe kind of danger. I liked to live suitably close to the edge, or at least I'd convinced myself I did. Either way, something kind of insane little voice inside my head told me to go up to the pay telephone near the corner and chat up the operator until she got fed up with me and connected me to whoever I wanted just to get me off her back. It worked every time, especially when they had new hires who'd been specifically instructed to: not take calls from James Elroy (aias Problem Sleuth, i.e., me); and to not connect anyone to the Midnight Crew under any circumstances. The mayor was the kind of fella who didn't like anyone having access to the competition. I had a hunch he was operating something much more sinister than he let on. 

   "Hello. Number, please," said the operator. 

   "Hey, sweetheart." 

   She hesitated. "Sir, please tell me the number to which you'd like to be connected." 

   "I don't know, darling. I forgot it when I heard how beautiful your voice was." 

   There wasn't much I loved quite as much as harassing operators. Maybe that accounted for the huge number of times I'd been hung up on: the other end of the line hadn't actually hung up, I'd been disconnected. I made a note to investigate further at another time. For now, I needed to get her so angry that she felt like ripping her switchboard out of the wall and throwing it right at me. 

   "Sir, I need a number. If you don't know the number, please give me a name and I'll be happy to connect you to the appropriate number." 

   "I need you to connect me to the Morningstar." 

   It sounded as if everyone on the other line had suddenly been struck mute. 

   "I'm sorry, sir. I'm afraid I can't do that under municipal law number ten, section twenty-five." 

   "Are you sure?" 

   "Yes. Now, is there another number to which I may connect you?" 

   "I'll settle for the Three In The Morning." 

   "That's still illegal." 

   There was basically no way that that wasn't going to happen. Now was the time to change the subject. "What's your name, sugar?" 

   "Excuse me?" 

   "Your name?" 

   She paused, as if contemplating whether or not to begin tearing electronics apart and hurling them Sleuth-wards. "Dorothea," she said curtly. "And I guess you must be Mr. James Elroy." 

   "Ah, Dorothea. That means gift of God. Dorothea, please connect me to the Morningstar and I'll let your boss know what a good operator you are." I didn't think it was really going to work, but apparently God's gift to her hadn't been intelligence. 

   "Alright," Dorothea said. "Just this once." 

   The line cut out for a second, and I was glad it was getting dark-- I was hopeful that no one had seen my victory dance. It had the potential to be highly embarrassing should anyone have witnessed it. 

   "What the Hell do you want," Droog said. 

   "Just to hear your lovely voice-- oh, what the Hell do you think I want? It's about the case. Trace is dead." 

   "Yeah?" 

   "Deuce's three-leaf clover pin doohickey was at the scene." 

   I could just about see Droog quirking one of his eyebrows in the closest thing that passed as surprise for him. He was more or less constantly expressionless. "You don't say." 

   Everything was quiet for a long time. The once sound on either end was an occasional shout from someone in the barroom on his end and intermittent traffic noises on mine. 

   "Can I come over?" I said. I knew it must have sounded pretty pathetic, especially after the little spat we'd had earlier about the meaning of the solution to the cryptic problem that had been on the box containing Clubs Deuce's heart: 37. 

   "You'd better," he said, after another long pause. "I have some new evidence too." 

   I tell you, empires had time to rise and fall in the time it took for that man to attempt to carry on a conversation on the telephone. If he were scared of anything (which was unlikely, as I'd learned in my various experiences with him and the rest of the Midnight Crew) it must have been telephones. Me, I wasn't scared of them; just of them ringing. A ringing phone usually resulted in me leaving my safe little nest of an office and sticking my neck out for people who may not have even cared if I was in danger. Maybe I was selfish, and maybe I should have pursued another career path-- but I had to admit, the few cases where people were genuinely grateful for my help far outweighed the ones where the selfish bastards got me down. 

   That had to be part of the reason I was on the right side of the law (well, mostly) rather than a member of the Midnight Crew. If I had a few ounces less of compassion (or maybe it was some kind of need for validation?) I surely would have found myself in a very different place. 

   "I'm kind of lost," I admitted. 

   "Where are you." 

   I told him the names of the streets that formed the corner I was on, and he gave me directions to the Morningstar. I didn't know whether he was my best friend or my worst enemy. I didn't think I would ever know. The walk to the Morningstar was shorter than I thought it would be. Perhaps it was to make up for sitting in the back of the 3AM the other morning, but I had a feeling Droog had given me the shortest route he could, God bless him. 

   Spades Slick opened the door when I got there and he didn't spare me a second look. He snorted loudly and discontentedly, then called to Droog: "Your boy friend's here!" 

   I wasn't his boy friend. 

   "He's not my boy friend," I heard Droog snap. It was good to know we were in agreement. 

   Droog shoved Slick out of the way when he got to the door. They reminded me of wolves sparring for dominance of their shared territory, in a way. It would have been kind of endearing if it hadn't been able to turn very, very violent very, very quickly. They both had tempers the likes of which I didn't ever want to encounter again. It had been a while since I'd seen Droog deliver a no-holds-barred beatdown, and I wanted it to be a while longer. 

   To my disappointment and mild horror, it wasn't. 

   Slick got to his feet and just stared at Droog-- tilted his head and _stared_ , like a bird of prey looking at its next meal. 

   I wondered what Droog would do. Would he get the first hit in, or would he let Slick hit him? There was no calling it until it actually happened. I took a step back-- I could imagine nothing worse than getting caught in the middle of a fight like this. Well, maybe being on the receiving end of it would be worse. I certainly didn't want to find out. 

   Slick cracked his knuckles-- the ones that weren't metal, anyway. "I know you didn't just--" 

   "I did," Droog interrupted. 

   "I was speakin'." 

   Droog rolled his eyes. To the casual observer, it was a flippant gesture-- childlike, almost. To someone who knew him a little better, it was a very clear indication that someone was about the get the everloving tar beat out of them. It was one of the first signs that the legendary temper was breaking. "I can see that." 

   "I wonder whether or not you can see who's in charge," Slick snarled. 

   "Sure," Droog said. "Sure. But last time I checked we were allowed to have guests. Or is there a separate rule for me, eh?" 

   "Maybe if you'd bring somebody else around once in a while I'd see about instituting something like that." 

   Had Slick just implied that I was Droog's only guest ever? No wonder he thought we were more than just professional friends. Surely Droog must have had other associates he invited over periodically to plan out whatever kinds of things it was that the Midnight Crew did without any laws in place to stop them-- mustn't he? 

   I looked around to be sure it was me he was pointing to. An impatient snort told me everything I needed to know. 

   Well, it could have been worse. 

   "Instituting," Droog repeated, mimicking Slick's tone almost exactly. I could hear him letting a hint of a smirk creep into his voice, which was otherwise low and dangerous-sounding; but then again, his voice always sounded just smug enough not to give away any hint of the hair-trigger temper that lay just beneath the surface of his carefully crafted façade of unshakable calmness. Maybe it was that smugness slipping a little that I heard. It was hard to tell with him. "That's a big word for you." 

   "I don't recall asking your opinion." 

   Droog rolled his shoulders and didn't say a word. He was awfully nonchalant for someone who was presumably going to be knee-deep in fistfight in just a second. 

   Someone inside called, "Just hit 'im already!" It sounded like Stitch. 

   "Didn't ask yours either!" Slick barked. There was laughter. 

   "We done here, or are you going to listen to him?" 

   Slick began to turn away and walk inside, but then changed his mind. He wheeled around and swung at Droog with his metal arm, but Droog managed to duck out of the way just in time. It seemed like everybody inside started clapping and hooting all at once. Droog narrowed his eyes and grabbed one of the cue sticks by the door. He wasn't going to let Slick get the drop on him again. He swung the stick and, because it extended his range further than a punch, caught Slick across the stomach with it. 

   Slick staggered backwards and just about fell over. He wasn't coughing up any kind of bodily fluids yet, but I had a feeling he would be soon, especially if Droog got in a few more hits like that. 

   He spat-- literally spat-- at Droog's feet, then dragged himself out of his metaphorical fetal position and swung at him again. 

   Fortunately for me, the fight migrated further inside the building and I was able to make it through the door without catching somebody's fist with my face. I was this close to barricading myself behind on the of the pool tables, but to my surprise Hearts Boxcars beckoned me over to the bar. Stitch-- who had been the fight's instigator-- laughing into his drink. 

   I looked around to be sure it was me he was pointing to. An impatient snort told me everything I needed to know. 

   "They'll be at this fer a while," Boxcars said. "May as well get yerself a drink and wait it out. Maybe patch Droog up when he finally manages to knock Slick out." 

   "Does Slick win often?" 

   Boxcars shook his head. "Poor Joker here--" he gestured to the bartender, who was all but cowering behind the bar. "He's half scared out a the few wits he's got because a the way Droog gives everybody that eye. Kinda funny." 

   I tried to laugh, but it sounded more like a squeak. "Yeah." 

   Boxcars narrowed his eyes at me and tilted his head. "Say, am I intimidatin'? 

   Oh, God. It was my worst nightmare come true. "N-n-no," I managed. 

   Well, it could have been worse. I could have just stood there shaking like Joker. He reminded me of Die, for some reason. 

   Stitch slapped Boxcars on the back. "Lay off 'im, mate, he's terrified." He leaned forward on the bar and directed a comment towards me: "Don't pay 'im no mind; 'e's drunk already." 

   I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Thanks." 

   Joker cleared his throat. "Can I get you something else to d-drink, Mister Stitch?" 

   Stitch looked down at his drink, which was no longer a drink but an empty glass. "Well, of course, mate. Appreciate the sentiment." 

   Joker shakily took down a bottle from the shelf behind him-- they'd somehow managed to replace everything in such a short time. Money talked, I supposed. He poured whatever was in the bottle into Stitch's glass, then turned to me. "And you, Mister Sleuth?" 

   I hesitated. Should I be getting drunk when Droog might need me to pull him off Slick in a couple of minutes? It was better to stay sober in case somebody needed dragged out of a fight. "Nothing, thanks," I said. 

   Speaking of a fight, the one in the barroom was progressing spectacularly. Droog's cue stick had broken, so he'd taken to making quick little jabs with his fists instead. It had been a while since I'd seen him fight, and for a good reason. He hated letting anybody see him like this-- with his temper so far gone that there was no getting it back until somebody was lying on the floor bleeding out of one or more orifices. 

   If Droog's punches were neat and swift and perfectly calculated, Slick's were just the opposite. He swung big, sweeping haymakers and hoped they hit something. It seemed like he had no strategy at all. Seeing him going all out to get any kind of punch in was kind of liberating. It made me want to get in a fight myself. The only thing that kept me from getting too keen on that idea was the fact that, if Ace were feeling particularly belligerent about his telephone, I *would* be in a fight as soon as I got home. 

   "Ten to one somebody's going to lose a tooth," Stitch said, turning on his barstool to face the fight. 

   "I'll drink to that," Boxcars said, taking a swig of whatever he was drinking. It was dark and almost opaque. It might have been Guinness, but it might have been blood. He was a cannibal, after all. I figured it'd be pretty rude to ask. 

   I turned to watch the fight, too; it was captivating. If they hadn't been trying to knock each other's blocks off, it would have been almost like a dance. An incredibly dangerous dance. 

   When Droog swung, Slick tried to block. He was probably drunk because most of the blocks didn't end up doing much. Slick's punches landed a lot less than Droog's did because Droog was actually competent at blocking something that was coming directly at him. He could also, you know, hit the side of a house. 

   My mind wandered to the way Slick had squabbled with Snowman the other day. They had the kind of relationship where petty jabs and insults were the norm. Was that the kind of relationship he had with Droog? That I had with Droog? I didn't know. I'd certainly never got in a fist fight with him-- with any of the Midnight Crew. The way they were fighting out there, I was sure I didn't want to-- ever. Droog was a machine. 

   I couldn't help wanting the fight to be over as soon as possible so I could show Droog what I'd found at the scene. I wanted to know what he'd discovered, too. I knew I'd said I didn't want any help on the case, but I was coming to realize that I'd have to have it, considering I knew almost nothing about what I was doing, what I was supposed to be doing, and-- perhaps most importantly-- what the killer had done. 

   Slick gave a shout suddenly, and I knew then that the fight was over. One minute he was on his feet, and the next he was lying on the floor with a Hell of a nose bleed. Droog was standing over him with a black leather loafer planted square on his chest. He couldn't get up if he wanted to, and he did. Every time he'd try, Droog would jab the broken end of his cue stick into places cue sticks shouldn't ought to have been shoved. It wasn't pretty in the slightest. 

   Droog spat, then lifted his foot off Slick's chest and turned his back on him. He walked over to the bar as if nothing had happened, wiped blood off his mouth, and looked at Joker. "Vodka. Two. Bring them to my room." 

   He took me by the arm and practically dragged me down the hallway. I could hear Slick's hyena-laugh echoing off the walls; everyone else had fallen silent. 

   "Is 'e missin' any teeth, can you see?" Stitch asked Boxcars. That was the last thing I heard before Droog opened his door, shoved me inside, and slammed it shut behind him. 

   He was quiet for a long time. I think he was trying to come up with what to say-- that, or he was waiting for his mouth to stop bleeding. Finally, he spoke. 

   "Sorry--" 

   "For what? I'm not the one who got the Hell beaten out of him." 

   He continued midsentence as if I hadn't interrupted him in the first place. "That you had to see that." 

   Just then, Joker must have knocked on the door. Droog opened it; a tray with two vodkas was sitting on the floor. Something told me Stitch and Boxcars had convinced the poor man that sticking around probably wasn't the best idea. I wish someone had tried to convince me of that. 

   "You want something to drink?" 

   I didn't, and I wasn't overly fond of vodka in the first place. "Sure," I said. It felt like he was trying to make up for what I'd seen him do to Slick. 

   "I broke his jaw," Droog admitted, pulling out the chair to his desk. He sat down. I sat on the desk itself. "He won't say anything else like that." 

   "I don't care," I said. "That's something between you and him; I've got nothing to do with it. I respect that." 

   "He's a big mother hen and he needs to stay out of my business." 

   "Okay." 

   Droog stared at his vodka. "I figured out what thirty-seven is, now you've told me Trace's dead." 

   I almost fell off the desk. "Really?" 

   "Crowbar." 

   That told me absolutely nothing. I hated it when he got into moods where he didn't feel like explaining what he was thinking. 

   "What about him?" 

   "Think about it. Trace-- dead. Crowbar--?" 

   "Dead," I realized. "Or he's going to be." 

   "The only question now is do we warn him," Droog said, smirking into his glass. His lips were bloody, and the vodka was swimming with little tendrils of bright red. I knew he didn't want me to say anything about it, but it was so distracting. It was like watching an eagle fly into a jet turbine, or listening to a hundred babies screaming: painful, but somehow intriguing at the same time. 

   "Morally, we're obligated." 

   "Logically, he's a jackass." 

   "I'll consider it." 

   "Alright." 

   It would have been far easier to decide if I could focus on something other than how badly that alcohol had to be stinging. "How can you drink that?" I finally said. I hadn't touched mine. To me, vodka had always tasted like sticking your tongue to a metal pole in the winter, with just a hint of "oh, God, I'm drinking kerosene". 

   "Can't feel it. Forgot how to." 

   "Wow. No idea what to say to that." 

   "Then try shutting up." 

   I tried it. It was kind of interesting, but I doubted I could keep it up for too long. 

   "We know Crowbar is going to die. We know Trace died. What connection they have to this is what we need to find out." 

   "Maybe the killer's trying to take out people he doesn't like." I frowned. "Why start with Deuce, though?" I shook my head to clear the incorrect reasoning out of my head. "Never mind. That makes no sense." 

   Droog scooted his chair away from the desk, got up, and started to pace around. He wasn't the pacing type. Maybe he was just antsy from the fight. He stopped. "Wait." 

   "Yeah?" 

   "What if they were accomplices. Killer's taking out the evidence. The Felt squeal on each other like piglets fighting over a sow's teat." 

   I set my untouched vodka on the desk, trying not to snicker at his unusual choice of similie. Not one I would've chosen, myself, but it got the point across. "Droog," I said, "I could just kiss you." 

   That discovery of his opened up whole new avenues for exploration. Clubs Deuce's clover-shaped pin had linked Trace's murder to his own, so if Crowbar got killed (through no fault of my own, mind you) and there was something linking him to deuce and Clover as well, then we had only to find the murderer and let Boxcars have at him. It seemed easy enough. The difficult part was stepping on the few morals I had in the decision I'd have to make: to let Crowbar be, or not to let him be? 

   "I know." It probably wasn't possible for him to sound any more smug. 

   The only thing we had left to do was decide whether or not it made me an awful person for not warning Crowbar about his impending death. I knew I couldn't just let him get killed-- but at the same time, I couldn't let Droog down by warning one of the enemy about something inauspicious. Maybe Clover would tell him, if I was lucky. I had a feeling I wasn't. 

   " I hope you know we have to go down to the Manor again. 

   Droog glared up at me. "Crowbar can get hit by a bus for all I care." 

   "Still." I fought back a grin. "We have to find out who's driving that bus." 

   It wasn't until later that I realized I always seemed to subconsciously include him in things whenever I was within a ten-foot radius of him. I felt like a baby koala clinging to its mother, or a clownfish hiding behind an anemone's stinging tentacles. Droog kept me from getting my ribs knocked in whenever I was at the Morningstar, and I provided him with excellent conversation in turn. It was a good type of relationship to be involved in. 

   Droog began to get out of the chair. "I'll be damned if I have to walk across town again. I'm calling a cab." 

   I held my hand up. "Now, hold it, eager beaver, you--" 

   "The only thing I'll be holding is you up by the throat if you ever say the words 'eager beaver' in my presence again." His face was stony serious, but his voice had the kind of harmlessly sarcastic edge it often got when his mood was improving. Not that it improved often. I considered it a special occasion whenever he made any kind of joke, even a horrifically violent one. 

   I bit my lip pensively. He had a point. "Either way, I think I'd rather wait until tomorrow. Been a long day." 

   "He could be dead by morning." 

   "Killer waited two days between Deuce and Trace." 

   "I'll call you a cab home." If he thought I was going to react to that, he didn't show it. He left the room, presumably to attempt to get a telephone operator to send a cab out here, then stuck his head in the door after a few minutes. I wondered how successful he'd been. He didn't exactly have a way with convincing strangers to do things for him-- not over the telephone or in writing, anyway. In person, when he could intimidate somebody like there was no tomorrow, he was a consummate professional at wheedling people into doing whatever it was he needed done. "Come on." 

   It was probably for the best that I followed him outside. Slick, still in a bad way from the fight, had his eyes glued to me the whole way out. (Well, his eye. I didn't know if it was possible to stare with an eye patch, and it wasn't polite to ask.) 

   For some reason that couldn't possibly have been related to the evil eye Droog had been giving the cab driver, when I arrived at my office the taxi's meter wasn't displaying a single number. Leave it to Droog to scare the daylights out of a man just so his strictly-business maybe-acquaintance-maybe-friend wouldn't have to pay for a cab.


	10. Aces High

   When I made it home, I crept up the stairs apprehensively, confident that Ace was going to jump out at me brandishing his telephone at any second. It was a horrible way to live, in fear of a man with a telephone. It didn't help that I was already rather suspicious of them to begin with thanks to the mayor. 

   Ace wasn't hiding in the stairwell, behind the potted plants in the hallway, in the ceiling, under the commemorative bust of Sherlock Holmes, or in any number of other equally obvious hiding places. I decided to take a risk and ask the Inspector if he'd seen him. 

   P.I.'s iron door was slightly ajar; I could hear voices coming from inside. One of them was his, and the other one wasn't Ace's. I breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded to eavesdrop. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt 'em. 

   "I understand that you may be feeling a little apprehensive about these recent... revelations." I couldn't place this fella's voice without peeking through the crack in the door, and I was sure they'd both see me if I did that. It wasn't worth risking it. I was sure it would come to me eventually. "Your friends-- both old and new, of course-- stand to lose a considerable amount should this plan you've made up fail." 

   "I generally tend to feel a little apprehensive," the Inspector said. "Though I'm confident I've planned for most of the things that could go wrong." 

   The man laughed good-naturedly. "I understand your concerns. I understand a lot of things." 

   "I can see that." 

   A third man spoke up. That was a surprise to me. "We all know what might go wrong here," he said. "Especially considering the various... interesting temperaments these gentlemen all possess." 

   "True," the Inspector said. "Can I get you more tea?" 

   Tea and plans that were liable to go wrong at any second? My curiosity was threatening to consume me from the inside out if I didn't get a look at who P.I. was talking to. I felt like I was going to explode if I didn't at least try to take a nonchalant peek at the men in the room. 

   I figured the easiest way to look through the crack in the door without being caught was to attempt to peer through it while walking casually in the other direction-- a simple glance that could be explained away without a second though. Failing that, my backup plan was to sneak through my own office and try to steal a look through the little back-room dealie that connected the Inspector's office with mine. 

   I instituted plan A, which failed. Of course it would. I didn't know what kind of luck god I'd offended, but I made a note to make it up to them as soon as possible. As much as it took to spend in the rigged casinos, I was willing to do it just to get a little good luck to head my way. 

   I took a deep breath, closed my eyes. Prepared myself to peer through the door. 

   To my surprise, the door was not as sturdy as I thought it was. As soon as I learned on it, it swung forward. I landed face-first and got a mouth full of (admittedly immaculate) carpet as a reward. 

   "It seems we have another visitor," said the first man I'd heard speak. I looked up to see a man with a cue ball for a head in the process of getting up from a high-backed chair that I was sure hadn't been in the office yesterday. It could only be Doc Scratch, the Felt's orchestrator. I suddenly felt very, very insecure about my ability as a detective. What kind of sleuth was I if I let one of the enemy slip under my radar like that? Shame on me. 

   The other man in the room had apparently just got up from a much simpler chair that had also appeared out of nowhere in the period of time between now and last night. He was in the process of pouring himself more tea. I recognized him: he was frail-looking and his skin was almost translucent; I could practically count the veins in the backs of his hands. His eyes were set so deep in his skull that it was a wonder he had eyes at all. His hair was jet black, and he wore an old-fashioned hooded robe, the kind priests or monks or whoever used to wear. I looked around to make sure he was who I thought he was (though there really wasn't any mistaking him for anyone else, honestly); just as I'd thought, there was a scythe propped up in the corner. Death. 

   "Well," I said, pulling myself up off the floor, "this sure is awkward." 

   Death smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Eavesdropping is... rather rude," he said. 

   "I concur," said Doc Scratch. "Although I must admit I knew you were going to fall through the door. It isn't nearly as heavy as it looks, is it?" 

   I wasn't sure how rude I could get away with being. I settled for mild. "Why not warn me?" 

   "Why not, indeed? Why not warn my ill-tempered associate of what's to befall him?" 

   I almost fell over from sheer surprise. "You know about that?" 

   "I think it would be redundant to remind you that I know about a lot of things, Mister Elroy." 

   He had a point. If the cue ball thing were true, what's to say the old urban legend that he was omniscient wasn't? I idly dusted off the front of my shirt. 

   Pickle Inspector cleared his throat thoughtfully. "If we're done here, gentlemen--?" 

   Doc Scratch nodded. "I think we are." It was nothing short of disconcerting, the fact that his voice wasn't coming from any sort of discernible mouth. That cue ball _had_ to be a helmet. I didn't want to think about what kind of being it made him if it was organic. "And I am never wrong." 

   "Very well, then," Death said. "Good evening." He took his scythe from the corner and faded into thin air. It was kind of disconcerting. 

   "Ta, Mister Queen. We'll meet again soon." Doc Scratch followed suit and vaporized in a flash of yellow and green static. 

   "You have some very interesting friends," I said. 

   The Inspector looked more disappointed than I'd ever seen him. "That was quite possibly the most important meeting of my life and you've just spoiled it by eavesdropping." 

   I didn't know how to apologize, so I settled for the classic sorry. "Sorry." 

   Pickle Inspector sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He suddenly looked very tired. "The Doctor told me Crowbar'll be dead tomorrow if nobody does anything about it." 

   "Did he tell you everything?" 

   "Yes." 

   "How'd you manage that?" Pickle Inspector smiled sagely. "I asked nicely, Sleuth." 

   Well, good for him. I wished it had been that easy for me. I'd been uptown and downtown a hundred times in three days, and my legs were sore from walking it. I still wasn't confident I knew everything about the case. 

   "So what're we going to do?" 

   "We're going on a stake-out, of course," the Inspector said. Of course. 

   The last stake-out I'd been on hadn't ended well on sheer virtue of it also having been the first stake-out I'd been on. Ace had been there, and he wasn't the type that was suited to sitting quietly for extended periods of time. Neither was I, really. So the stake-out had ended in the both of us getting fall-down drunk and making far too much noise. We also got arrested, which was fun to explain to the Inspector. Something told me he hadn't really appreciated cops at his door at four in the morning asking him if he knew 'these two hooligans'. 

   "I don't know," I said. "Last time didn't end too well for anybody." 

   He put his hand on my shoulder. "James, we've been through a lot. You've matured. I've observed you making a fool of yourself frankly more times than I care to admit. I trust you'll behave yourself." He paused. "Ace isn't invited, if it helps. He's-- well, he's rather a bad influence." 

   I rolled my eyes and shook his hand away. "Well, that just makes everything fine and dandy." 

   The Inspector fiddled with the lid on the teapot Death had accidentally left behind. "Bring Mister Diamonds, if you like. I'm aware he's been assisting you..." He trailed off. _...Instead of me_ , was the part of the sentence he didn't say. I felt rotten for not keeping him up to speed on the case-- but I couldn't bring myself to call off the arrangement I'd made with Droog. 

   It was quiet for a while; I could hear traffic outside even though (or perhaps because) it was getting late. Insects outside were starting to tap at the windows, trying to get into the light. 

   "Incidentally," P.I. said, "I replaced Ace's telephone before he arrived home. You're safe as houses." 

   "Really? You're a saint." 

   "Someone has to be responsible." He smiled a thin smile. "I'm joking." 

   Even though I'd barged in on his meeting and had ditched him for my other friend(s) and had probably done a lot more irresponsible things than I even remembered, he was there for me. He'd always been there for me. And that meant a lot. 

   Back when I'd been in the force, I was on my own more than I cared to admit. I was always the rookie. Always the clumsy one nobody'd bother teaching because I was too dumb to learn it in the first place. Nobody knew my name was James Elroy-- they all thought it was 'James, for fuck's sake stop breaking things'. It was nice, then, to have somebody who knew who I was, somebody who might have even looked up to me if our roles had been reversed-- if he'd been some rookie lawyer nobody liked and I'd been the most respected sheriff for miles around. We all had our falls from grace, I supposed. It was what we did with ourselves after them that really counted. 

   Me, I chose to trash my office. But damn it, I was happy. I didn't care if I couldn't see the floor half the time for all the bits and bobs scattered here and there, or if I had to dig through several well-defined layers of various and assorted junk to get to the stuff I really needed in my desk drawers. I didn't care about that. What I really cared about-- what I truly loved, what kept me awake at night-- was justice and my friends, sometimes in that order (and sometimes transposed depending upon whether or not I'd been drinking.) 

   My office was just the way I'd left it, which was good. My style of haphazard organization meant that no one could break in without me noticing that something was awry. It was like folding a map exactly the way you'd found it: impossible. Maybe I had some kind of nesting instinct. Ir bothered me when my office _wasn't_ a mess. 

   I practically fell onto my bed and took my hat and shoes off. I flung them away from me; they landed on the floor... somewhere. I was too tired to deal with anything. Being at the Manor for so long and trying not to fall apart during that meeting, however short, with Death and the Doc had left me utterly drained, and knowing I'd have to do it all again in the morning didn't make matters any better. At least everything was working out relatively alright. The only problems I had left were figuring out what the horseshoe I'd found in the stable was, how Deuce and Trace had been killed-- and most importantly, who the murderer even was. 

   My list of suspects had dwindled from six to three: the only ones left were Matchsticks (whom I still suspected despite his attachment to Fin) and Quarters and Cans working in unison. A guy like Matchsticks, you can't put it past him to kill his... hmm. His best friend's brother. Quarters was smart enough to pull off something like this by himself, but it was nice to have extra muscle in the form of an unquestioningly loyal bodyguard. I doubted he'd do something so audacious by himself. 

   But that was enough for tonight. I flopped back on my bed like a man defeated and I was this close to falling asleep before I heard a knock on my door. "Sleuth?" 

   I don't know how i did, but I found it in me to roll out of bed. 

   Ace was at the door. He was a little thinner and tanner than I remembered, but it could've just been a trick of the light. He had one of his customary awful cigars hanging from the corner of his mouth, same as he always did. It wasn't lit; as much as he liked to smoke he never did it inside. I was grateful, too; those things spit out noxious fumes like diesel trucks or smokestacks. 

   God, had I missed that big oaf. He could be a real horse's hind sometimes, but he and I were almost like brothers. I almost didn't know what to do now that he was home where he belonged. 

   "James," he said. He broke into a grin and pulled me into one of his massive bear hugs. I could've sworn I felt one of my ribs crack. He set me down and said, "How've you been?" 

   "Good," I said, rubbing my side. "Pretty good. Where were you, anyway? And what brings you back?" 

   He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked over his shoulder."Just... out." He didn't want to talk about it, then. I understood that; there were plenty of things I didn't want to talk about either. 

   "Well, it's good to have you back. Welcome home, pal." 

   "Good to be back." He chuckled. "I better go and see what the old Inspector's up to, eh?" 

   I grinned. "Remember that old back room between his office and mine?" 

   "Yeah-- why?" 

   "We tore that godawful old mural down. Go in the back way; scare the Hell out of him. A real welcome back party." 

   Ace grinned hugely. "You're a genius." 

   I cracked open the door to the back room and ushered Ace inside. We were both holding back schoolboy giggles as I showed him how to unlatch the Inspector's door from the inside. 

   With a shout, he burst through the door. P.I. must have jumped a foot into the air; his tea set tipped over and tea spilled all over his desk. It was lucky for us that he wasn't working on anything important. 

   I was practically rolling on the floor with hyena-esque laughter; Ace was leaning heavily on the wall, trying not to fall over in his hysteria. The Inspector was this close to hyperventilating, smacking Ace with a rolled-up newspaper, or both. 

   "What in the *world*--?" 

   "Nice to see you too, Ellery! It's a welcome back party!" 

   "Hello, Sam," the Inspector said, icily. Though he was controlling the stutter that usually showed up when he was nervous, his hands were trembling as he tried to right his toppled teapot. "I have a feeling this was James's idea." 

   "Guilty as charged," I said, beaming. "But he helped." 

   "I see." The Inspector finally managed to set the teapot upright; he started on the cup, never breaking eye contact with me. It was disconcerting. "Sleuth, we've got work in the morning." 

   "Yeah, we do. Ace, I'm afraid we've got to cut your party short." 

   "Work? What kind of work? Been taking jobs without me, eh?" 

   P.I. clicked his tongue chidingly. "Of course we have; we're all detectives, here." 

   "Yeah, it's..." I looked to the Inspector; he shook his head surreptitiously. _Don't tell him._ "It's a Midnight Crew thing. They told me not to tell anybody too much about it, or else... Well, you know or else what." 

   "Shucks, buster. I'd love to help." Ace held his fists up and threw a couple punches at the air. "That Spades Slick-- when he's drunk he's one Hell of a fighter. I never had so much fun as the last time I fought him." 

   The image of Ace and Slick fighting was too much. They were both a sight to see under certain circumstances-- Ace when he was drunk, and Slick when he was sober and in a halfway decent mood. (Hard to believe, but he and I actually got along when he wasn't trying to kill or maim everything in sight. I had a feeling it was because Droog'd threatened him about me enough times that he'd gotten the point: I was off-limits, as it were.) You put the two of them together, and in any case, the fight would have been interesting, to say the least. Ace was... heavy. Knew how to throw that weight around, though. Slick was wiry, almost as if he was made of pipe cleaners and hate. 

   "Sorry. Can't let you come with us." 

   "Damn. Next case, maybe." 

   Sure, if Matchsticks didn't chop me up into little pieces and eat me for coming back to the Manor after he'd said to get out and stay out. "Yeah." 

   Ace clapped the Inspector on the back hard enough that he almost dropped his teacup, then he left. 

   "Sorry about that. Thought it was going to be funnier than it was." 

   "James?" 

   "Yeah." 

   "Just-- please. Go to sleep. You're fraying the already thin rope that is my nervous disposition." 

   "You sound like a thesaurus." 

   "Go to sleep." 

   "Yeah, yeah." 

   I slept like a baby: tossing and turning and waking up every two hours. I wasn't nervous at all.


	11. All In, Part I

   I was already awake and staring out the window when the sun came up. Sleep had evaded me all night like a dryad running from an especially amorous satyr. Every time I hollered at her to slow down and come back, she'd run faster and faster until she disappeared into an entirely different part of the forest. I'd find her hiding among a little glen, or in a grassy clearing, or behind a giant oak. Every time I happened upon her we'd go through the whole rigmarole again and again until she gave in or I did. Long story short, I did. I sat on a stump and threw in the towel. I quit. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for hours, trying to anticipate what might happen today. 

   I had bags under my eyes to rival Helen's probably illegal purse. Helen. I hadn't paid her a passing thought since I escorted her out of the building and into the cab. I wondered if she really did hate me or if she was just being Helen. I wondered if I could patch things up with her-- or if I even wanted to. It was true what she'd said, how I never paid attention to her because I was always elbow-deep in a case. I didn't deserve a dame like her, was the long and short of it. 

   Every one of my muscles hurt, even the ones I didn't know I had, and I was still foggy from Die's temporal field day two nights ago. All in all, it was an awful way to start the day. I'd hardly eaten at all in the past few days, and it showed. I was clumsy getting out of bed, sluggish; I could barely figure out how to tie my shoes or get dressed because my fingers didn't want to cooperate. I needed a good meal and some more sleep, in that order. Hopefully today would give me the results I'd been tap-dancing all over town for: who done it, and how. Assuming everything worked out peachy-keen, I'd receive a nice bonus from the Midnight Crew and I'd be set for dinner for a while at least. 

   I had to get some kind of day job. That, or find cases that paid off more quickly than the ones I'd been stuck with for the past couple of weeks. It was maddening, trying to put together things that didn't want to be put together-- especially doing it for nothing. I was sure it didn't take much to see that the problems of most of the power who showed up in my office didn't amount to a hill of beans. Personally, I'd rather have eaten the beans. 

   I rubbed my eyes to get the last of the sleep out. Stretched. Grumbled about how unfair everything was. Then, I finally managed to make it out into the hallway, where the Inspector was already waiting. 

   "You're up early," I mumbled. 

   "I'm always up early. Let's go. I've phoned Mister Diamonds for you, and there's a cab waiting. If I've been informed correctly he's already in it. Let's go." 

   Since when was he so in charge of everything? And since when did he know how to get the operators to connect to the Morningstar? Probably since I stopped being a morning person (which, incidentally, was shortly after I stopped _having_ to be one-- exactly two days after I got kicked off the police force.) At least somebody in Team Sleuth was responsible. I guessed I was missing a lot, not being up at the crack of dawn. I wondered what else I'd neglected to notice about P.I. 

   There really was a cab waiting downstairs. We took the elevator I didn't trust rather than the stairs because, despite P.I.'s insistence that it would get my blood flowing, I probably would have passed out on the way down. I was positively flabbergasted at how early cabbies had to be up. There had to have been some kind of law against forcing people to work before ten A.M. at least. P.I. had been informed correctly, because Droog was sitting in the passenger's seat staring down the terrified-looking driver. Something told me the cab hadn't been hailed quite legally. 

   "Late, Ellery," Droog said, letting his gaze drive away from the cab driver, who was staring straight ahead. He looked about ready to cry. I'd been on the receiving end of one of Droog's staredowns. I understood exactly what the poor sap was feeling right about now. 

   The Inspector climbed into the back seat. "James had a bit of a lie-in," he said. "My fault. Won't happen again." He was far past the point of nervous stuttering; it showed. He was white-knuckled, fingernails digging into his palms. I wondered if Droog picked up on it. He didn't know the Inspector as well as I did, but even knowing him a little had to be knowing he wasn't usually so curt and short with his language. 

   "You call six thirty in the morning sleeping in?" I exclaimed, getting in the seat next to him. Trying to break the ice had to be worth something. 

   "I've been up since half five," the Inspector said. "I even had time for a cup of tea." 

   "Five," Droog said. "Two and a half cups of coffee." It was like he was determined to do everything slightly better than anyone who dared to challenge him. It wasn't like him to be so competitive. I wondered what had gotten into the both of them. We were all in for a lot of trouble if they kept trying to outdo each other. 

   I pulled the car door shut and shook my head, bemused. "That's just inhuman." 

   "Drive," Droog said to the cabbie. I couldn't quite tell, but it looked like he had a gun. I made a note to bring it up later. The cabbie drove and continued not to say a word. 

   Time flies when you're sitting in the back of a hijacked cab with a nervous wreck who's apparently trying to shrink himself to a single point, especially when he hijacker himself isn't feeling very talkative. We made it to Felt Manor in record time. No one bothered to pay the cabbie. I had a feeling he didn't mind terribly. He burned rubber getting down the street. Probably he considered himself exceptionally lucky to be alive. 

   "Where are we going?" I asked. Nobody answered. 

   Droog took the lead and marched right up to the front door. He knocked. It opened. 

   "Mornin', Diamonds." 

   "Stitch." He nodded almost imperceptibly in greeting. "You've met James." His eyes flicked to me, lingered for a second, and then went to the Inspector. "This is Ellery Queen. Goes by Pickle Inspector." 

   "Pleasure to meet you, mate," Stitch said, extending his hand to the Inspector, who took it gingerly. I knew from experience that his handshake felt like a dead fish. I almost felt sorry for poor old Stitch. "You'd all better 'urry up. We got everyone sitting in the parlor waiting on you to explain what's 'appening." 

   Oh, excellent. 

   Stitch led us inside, down what must have been the longest, most twisty hallway in existence. I wondered if the Manor wasn't some kind of labyrinth. 

   I elbowed Droog in the ribs to get his attention. In hindsight, because of his fight last night, that may not have been the best idea. "What's he saying about everyone being in the parlor?" 

   He glared at me for a moment, then said, "Everyone knows somebody offed Trace and they're trying to drag a confession out of whoever did it. They'll get one eventually." He muttered something about how resourceful they were, then shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at his shoes. He didn't want to be here. It wasn't his turf. He felt outclassed, I was sure, and that put him in a bad way. He definitely didn't like being out of his element. 

   Neither did I, to be honest. My problem with them was more because of what might have been the slightest sense of alliance with the Midnight Crew than because of anything else, of any real hatred. What could I say? I was grateful for all the trouble they'd kept me out of (and gotten me into), all the cases they inadvertently (and purposely) sent my way. Above all, though, I owed them more money than I cared to think about. I had plenty of friends-- well, contacts, at least. Acquaintances. But somehow just because the Crew despised me, they were the only ones I really trusted. Aside from Team Sleuth, anyway. I knew all kinds of swindlers and gamblers and back-alley dealers of all and sundry, but the Crew, I decided, was like a second family to me. I didn't know whether that was a good thing or a very, very bad one. 

   After a century and a half we made it to the same parlor Trace had been killed in. I half-expected his body to be lying under a sheet on a table someplace, but the Manor was huge. If they were preparing some kind of wake for him, they were doing it someplace else. 

   The light was dim and green, same as it was everywhere else. I hadn't noticed it yesterday, but there were no windows in here, but despite that and despite the frankly intimidating number of people gathered about on sofas and skulking behind potted plants, the room didn't seem cramped at all. 

   My eyes were drawn immediately to Snowman because, unlike the rest of the Felt, she wore a black ensemble. The others wore the exact same shade of green. It was like some kind of uniform. The corners of her lips twitched into a smile for a brief second, though whether it was directed at me or at Droog I didn't know. 

   Fin was sitting on one side of her; Clover on the other. Matchsticks was standing behind the sofa they were on; his hand was resting protectively behind Fin. He sneered, and there was no doubt about whom that gesture had been intended for: the both of us. It was all I could do to stop from sticking my tongue out at him. Droog gave me a kick in the ankle for even daring to think about it. Id idn't know how he knew, but somehow I was kind of glad he did. It meant he'd though it too. 

   Stitch broke the uncomfortable silence. "Folks, this is Diamonds Droog." 

   "We _know_ who he is," somebody said. 

   "He's only bein' polite." 

   "Why don't you can it, you little--" 

   "Boys," Snowman said, craning her neck to reprimand whoever'd spoken out of turn somewhere behind her. She didn't have to say more than one word; they were all truly afraid of her. I wondered what it would be like, to command that much attention from everyone. To be so powerful that nobody would dare speak out against you. 

   Pretty boring, I decided. I'd rather have contention and challenges any day. Stuff like that keeps you sharp, keeps you on your toes. It's better to have to prove your point because then you know for damn sure it's really what you believe. 

   Stitch cleared his throat. "The gentleman next to 'im's Problem Sleuth, and this other bloke's Pickle Inspector. They're goin' to find out what 'appened to Mister Trace." 

   "We know what happened to him," the first voice piped up again. Its owned walked forward from the far corner of the room: Crowbar. "He got himself killed. Big deal." 

   "Awful big talk for someone who got the same threat, Seven," Droog said. I didn't know much about how the Felt operated as far as hierarchy went, but the way Crowbar's face scrunched up told me calling somebody by his number was a big no-no. 

   "Droog," I hissed. "We're not here to make enemies." 

   "Agreed," said the Inspector. "We've all promised to be on our best behavior, haven't we?" 

   Droog took a breath and exhaled very slowly. 

   "If you'll come with me, gentlemen," Stitch said, leading us all further into the parlor. I saw Itchy talking excitedly at Doze and Die, who looked half-asleep and incredibly nervous, respectively. Sawbuck was sitting on a couch by himself, attempting to carry on a conversation with an awe-struck Eggs and Biscuits, who were sitting on the sofa opposite him. 

   The only ones missing were-- 

   "Nice of you all to invite us." 

   "Yeah, real nice." 

   Quarters and Cans. Of course. Quarters was leaning on the wall at the bottom of one of the stairwells as if standing up straight was a tremendous effort he just didn't want to make so early in the morning; Cans was standing behind him and trying not to fall because of how steep the stairs were. 

   "Well, if it ain't Beauty and the Beast," Crowbar spat. 

   "Look who's talking-- someone whose face has apparently lost more fights with his own crowbar than anyone can refrain from vomiting long enough to remember." 

   Oh, he was good. I'd have given my left leg to be that quick on the draw. 

   "Say that to my face!" 

   "I would, but as I said I can hardly stand to look at it." 

   Crowbar started to walk towards the stairs, rolling his sleeves up in preparation for a fight. Never mind that Matchsticks was both much taller and in possession of a very well-prepared bodyguard of sorts-- Crowbar meant to start an all-out war. "You'll pay for that, you--" 

   "No one is going to pay for anything," Snowman said. When had she gotten up from the sofa? Had I blinked and missed it? 

   One minute she'd been sitting next to Clover and Fin, and the next she was standing behind Crowbar with her hand resting just heavily on his shoulder to indicate that she was there and she was not amused. She had presence and sway over the Felt despite her gender; it helped that she was almost as tall as Matchsticks, who must have been at least 6'2". I clocked her around 5'10", about the Inspector's height. In any case, it was no wonder she called them her boys: it was plain to see she owned every single one of them. 

   Crowbar snorted and brushed her hand away. "Yes, ma'am," he said, almost under his breath. 

   Quarters smirked. "Of course, Miss Snowman." He turned to Cans and said something quick in French. They descended the stairs. Quarters glared at me and Droog and the Inspector as he passed us. 

   "Well, now everyone's here--" P.I. began, but I shushed him with a quick jab in the ribs. He looked at me questioningly, but I couldn't offer him an a explanation because Stitch was talking again. 

   "Right, Doc explained this very clearly last night so let's not 'ave anybody askin' any stupid questions. Line up by number and wait 'til you're called. Itchy, you're first, mate. Start rememberin' what 'appened." 

   Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Itchy dragging Doze to his feet. Matchsticks helped Fin up; Clover had been standing apparently since Snowman got up to scare the wits out of Crowbar. Die looked around anxiously and stood by Fin and Matchsticks. 

   "Are we going to, uh, interrogate everyone?" I asked. 

   "Right through here, mate," Stitch said, gesturing toward a door that I was sure hadn't been there when we got here. 

   We went through the door to find a stark gray room that clashed awfully with the green outside. There was a table and four chairs; three on one side and just one opposite it. I doubted we'd all be sitting at the same time. If P.I. sat, Droog would start just to spite him. 

   "Alright," I said, taking the middle seat. "Send him in." 

   P.I. sat next to me. Droog-- predictably-- stood in the corner of the room, arms crossed, glaring. 

   Itchy came through the door looking uncharacteristically nervous. 

   "You all know I didn't do it," he said. 

   "We're only following procedure, I'm afraid," P.I. said. "Tell us whatever you recall about either crime scene." 

   Itchy took a deep breath in preparation for a long paragraph. As soon as he began to speak, Droog cut him off. 

   "Slowly." 

   He started over. "Well-- I was minding my business sitting in the parlor with those twins and I left the room for half second-- literally half a second-- to go get some cards to pass the time until Mister Sleuth and Miss Snowman got out of the garage." He paused and took another breath. Droog looked at me with one eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch: _You and her?_ Itchy continued, "Neither of them carries cards; can you believe that? So I came back and I saw somebody running up the stairs and Fin was standing there just staring at Trace, goggling, like. Mouth open, but not saying anything. So I said oh my God, Fin, don't move an inch, and shouted for Miss Snowman." 

   P.I., God bless him, had dutifully taken notes on the deluge of information we'd just been provided with. His handwriting was immaculate despite the speed with which Itchy'd rambled. I didn't know how it was humanly possible to write so quickly and have it look so perfect. 

   "And did you witness anything regarding the death of Clubs Deuce?" 

   "I was making coffee then," Itchy said, shrugging. "Nowhere near the Vault." 

   "Alright. Thank you for your time." 

   We sent Itchy out and Stitch sent Doze in. He took forever sitting down and even longer answering our questions. If it was true what Itchy said about the murder having occurred so quickly, there was no way this guy could've done it. 

   "...Can I... go...?" 

   We sent him out. Clover came in. 

   "Hello, Detective Elroy. Detective Queen. Mister Diamonds." He nodded at each of us in turn and climbed into the chair opposite P.I. and me. "Have you learned anything?" 

   "Nothing much," the Inspector said. "Though we were hoping you might help us with that. Does that sound fair?" 

   Clover nodded. 

   "Please tell us what you remember about Clubs Deuce's death." 

   Clover got really quiet for a minute. I couldn't tell if he was thinking or if he didn't want to think about what had happened. 

   Droog said, "Any time, now." 

   P.I. shot a glance at him. I didn't know he had that much venom in him. "Take All the time you need," he said. It was meant for Clover but he never stopped looking at Droog. 

   Slowly, Clover began to speak. "I was organizing my charms in my room when Mister Crowbar came to my door and said Miss Snowman wanted me in the Vault. It isn't unusual for her to send him to get me, so I--" he broke off. "I went with him-- Detective Elroy, I didn't know! I wouldn't have gone if I knew!" 

   "That's okay, Clover, you just tell us what happened." 

   "I went down there and I didn't see Miss Snowman anywhere. Then I-- Mister Quarters was there, and Mister Cans. I asked them where Miss Snowman was and they said the only Midnighter there was Clubs Deuce." 

   "What'd they mean, Midnighter? She's Felt all the way through, right down to her black little heart," Droog said. 

   "They meant that she and Clubs Deuce-- and you, land the rest of the Midnight Crew, obviously-- aren't from around here, Mister Diamonds," P.I. said. "They're all from the Underground.. Snowman left and came back, as you know... Unless I'm mistaken." 

   Droog sneered. "Wouldn't put it past you." 

   I sensed an impending disaster if I let these two go on bickering like fishwives. "Go on, Clover," I said. 

   Clover nodded. "They made me open the Vault and C.D. was sitting on the floor, leaning against the door to the cellar, and I--" He planted his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands. "I didn't know what was going on, but they told me I'd ceased to be useful and to get out or I'd end up like him." 

   P.I. looked at me, unsure what to ask next. I wasn't quite so sure either: I'd never really been the one to deal with grieving witnesses. I usually left that to Helen... Helen. I needed to make up with her soon. Team Sleuth needed her expertise. And-- maybe I needed her a little bit, too. I hadn't paid her much mind in the past couple days, but I'd been caught up in the case. I suddenly understood where she was coming from when she said I never spent time with her anymore. When this case was wrapped up-- when the Midnight Crew had had whatever revenge it wanted-- I knew I had to make it up to her somehow, despite my initial misgivings. 

   "Did you go?" Droog asked. I was surprised: I didn't peg him as the type to understand what a witness was feeling. More as a sociopath. 

   Clover nodded. "I went. I told Miss Snowman what happened and I guess she called you later, Detective Elroy." 

   "When did you go back for the body?" P.I. asked. 

   "Miss Snowman came up and said she wanted to go down to the cellar. She said she sent for Crowbar but he was nowhere to be found so she had to get me herself. I didn't want to go, but... And when we got there I saw what they'd done to C.D. after I left the first time." 

   "What did you do after that?" 

   "Detective Queen, do I have to? You already know what happened after that..." 

   "It's for the records, Clover. I'm sorry." 

   "Miss Snowman I'd somebody had to take him back where he belonged. I asked her if she could send somebody strong like Mister Sawbuck, but everybody was busy. So I..." He paused. "I carried him there by myself, and he was so heavy, I just-- I couldnt--" 

   "That's enough," Droog said. He was the last person I expected to be compassionate towards the little guy, but the stare the Inspector was giving him might've had something to do with it. 

   "Around eleven when you called, wasn't it," I said. He nodded. 

   "It might have been nine or ten when I went to Mister Diamond's house." 

   The Morningstar was hardly a house, but the kids story checked out on all angles. I felt horrible, having made him talk about it-- but justice was justice, and there would be no justice if some people didn't have to do things that made them uncomfortable. 

   "Thank you for talking to us, Clover," P.I. said. "Please tell Mister Stitch to send in the next in the queue." 

   Clover nodded. Just before he left the room, I said. "Wait a minute, Clover. Can you tell him not to send Fin in right away? Tell him to wait until we ask for him." 

   He nodded again."Okay. Goodbye, Detectives. Goodbye, Mister Diamonds." And he left. 

   "Bye, kid." 

   The moment the door closed behind Clover, I stood up and gawked at Droog. "What the Hell kind of business do you have being buddies with Clover?" 

   Droog shrugged. "Boxcars and I are drinking buddies. Deuce was Boxcars's charge. Clover and Deuce were pals. I am, by extension, Clover's acquaintance." 

   It was the most words I'd heard him speak all at once in a while. 

   "It's weird, is all." 

   The Inspector chimed in, "What's weird is that no one has mentioned a weapon so far." 

   "Clover mentioned about the that horseshoe I found in the stables-- which incriminates Quarters just like he said. Imagine those scumbags roughed him up and he dropped it at the scene. Later Quarters finds it and hides it in the one place a horseshoe wouldn't look off-- the stables, where he conveniently works." 

   "He mentioned charms," Droog said flatly. "Never said anything about a horseshoe in particular." 

   "It's close enough for me, alright? We know Quarters did it, is what I'm saying." 

   "We don't know, technically. He hasn't confessed." 

   "Damn confessions!" I said. "Somebody killed this kid's best friend, and Fin's brother, and maybe he's already started on Crowbar, for all we know! Get Boxcars down here and let him start knocking heads together!" 

   "We can't take anything to the bank until we have a _confession_ , P.S., you know that." The Inspector ruffled through several pages of legal paper on which he'd been taking notes. "Circumstantial evidence and two testimonies are nothing." 

   "This isn't court, Ellery. You're not a lawyer anymore." 

   "And you're not a brute with a gun, James-- you can't make the law work how you want it to!" 

   Droog slammed his fist on the table; P.I. and I both jumped. We'd been so preoccupied with tearing each others throat's out that we hadn't noticed him edging up to us. He sure knew how to make himself known. I am Diamonds, hear me roar. 

   "Stop arguing," Droog hissed, "or I _will_ get Boxcars down here and then we'll all be buggered. Tell me you pony what I'm saying. Spatting like this is useless." He didn't even need to raise his voice for me to get goosebumps. He'd get Boxcars down here without a second thought if anyone so much as said another word about evidence and confessions. 

   I took a step back from the table and ran my hands through my hair. "You're right. You're right. I'm sorry. Both of you." 

   "I apologize for losing my temper. Normally I'm good about staying cool." 

   If that was what his temper looked like, I was kind of afraid to know what happened when he decided to hold a grudge. Maybe he was truly passive-aggressive instead of just passive. He always put up with my shenanigans, but was it only because I'd never really given him a persistent reason not to? I would have liked to have tested my little theory, but there were more pressing matters at hand. 

   "We need to find out what the weapon was," I said. "Maybe Fin'll know." 

   P.I. stuck his head out the door and hollered (well, said in a tone of voice a little louder than normal) for Stitch to send Fin in. 

   We all took our seats again; Droog still leaned on the wall in the corner. 

   "We don't know why we're being questioned," Fin said, still apparently ignorant of singular first-person pronouns. "Our brother _died_ and you're questioning us. Unbelievable." 

   Yeah, leave it to Fin to start complaining before he was even all the way in the room. That seemed like something he'd do. 

   On a hunch, I decided to poke at his weak link. "You can cut the 'we' crap. I know how it was with you two." 

   "That so?" 

   "It's all to do with Matchsticks, isn't it? You wanted a degree of freedom from your big brother and Matchsticks offered it to you. And naturally Trace wasn't too fond of that." 

   Fin gave me a glare to end all glares. "I didn't do it and Matchsticks didn't do it either." 

   "Oh, calm down. I know you're innocent. I just want information." 

   Fin smirked, taking a seat. "That's what they said the last time we were at the police station for extortion." 

   "My God, you _do_ have a sense of humor in there somewhere." 

   "It is rarely provoked, but yes, it exists." Fin took his hat off and put it in his lap. His hair was disheveled, almost standing on end. It looked as though I wasn't the only one who hadn't been able to sleep last night. 

   "Tell us how the trey died," Droog said. 

   "Show some respect, Mister Diamonds," P.I. scolded. "'The trey' has a name." 

   "We had all just been dismissed by Miss Snowman." 

   "'We all'?" I asked. "Who is 'we all'? 

   "Trace, Itchy, and me," Fin said. "You were there." 

   I hadn't been expecting that to make sense, but somehow it did. 

   "Go on." 

   "We had all been dismissed, so I went to the parlor to wait for further instructions. We'd all been told to wait for further instructions, you see." 

   "Yeah." 

   "Itchy went to get some playing cards and I was admiring the aquarium. Trace never cared for it. He was watching the fireplace." Fin paused. 

   "Yeah?" I said. "Keep going." 

   "I was getting to that." He cleared his throat. "I heard someone coming down the stairs so I looked at his future trail and saw him leave the room in about a minute. It was Quarters. He and Trace had a bit of a partnership going on-- some project or another they were working on. I looked at Trace's future trail as well to see if they'd leave together, but--" 

   "But?" 

   "Stop interrupting! But the trail ended where Trace was sitting. We thought someone else might have come and taken him to another timeline-- Sawbuck, maybe. But when I turned around to ask Quarters and Trace where they were going..." He trailed off. 

   "Trace was dead," I finished. "Hard evidence. No dismissing that." 

   "It's still only a testimony. We need a confession." 

   "Whatever." 

   "I'm going to leave now." Just for a minute, he looked very, very young and very, very scared. He glanced over his shoulder and put his hat back on, then leaned down close to me. "Please don't tell anyone about Matchsticks and me." I nodded, and left. 

   "Doublecrosser," Droog muttered. Thankfully Fin didn't seem to hear him. The door creaked . 

   "You ought to keep a lid on that mouth," I said. "You're going to make them less willing to cooperate than they already are." 

   "You say that now. You don't know what he did to Slick and me when we tried to borrow money from Scratch a few years ago. " 

   "Frankly, I don't give a damn. How come you're such great pals with Stitch, then?" 

   "Who the Hell do you think pulled Five and his idiot brother off me when I tried to run without paying them back?" 

   I shrugged. Fair enough. I'd been in enough trouble with enough people that I understood what it was like to have somebody watching your back. Hell, he was standing right in front of me. So I let it go. 

   Die appeared in the interrogation room holding his voodoo doll by the neck and looking beyond frazzled. 

   "Most people use the door," Droog said. Die jumped at the sound of his voice. 

   I couldn't help grinning despite how difficult it was going to be to get him to answer anything now. I knew it was probably better not to waste time getting started; who knew how long we'd been here already? 

   "Tell us what you know about how Clubs Deuce died." 

   Die looked around nervously, then took at sweat at the table. "Y-you're not going to p-p-play 'good cop, bad cop' are you?" He smiled for a split-second. "I j-j-joke." 

   "Not unless we have to." 

   "You sh-shan't. What would you like to know?" 

   "Whatever you remember." 

   Die twisted the now-useless clubs pin in his doll. "I found young Master Clover and M-miss Snowman in the Vault along with young Master Clubs. N-n-not that I was intending to engage in anything illicit with regard to alcoholic beverages." 

   "So you nipped down the cellar hoping for a bit of a drink," P.I. said. 

   "W-well, yes." Die smiled mirthlessly. It was unnerving. 

   "Continue." 

   "They didn't see me, so I left without drawing any attention." He shrugged, as if anybody would have just gone about his business after having seen the results of an unusually violent and pointless murder. 

   "And you didn't tell anybody, hey, dead body down here, might wanna come check it out?" I asked. 

   "Mister Elroy, do you sincerely believe anyone would th-think it out of the ordinary if I said anything about a d-dead body? Why, it's nearly all I talk about-- I was a coroner-- p-p-p-- please don't suggest that I didn't do my utmost to-- t-to--" 

   He had a point. I sighed. "Alright, you're free to go." 

   "Thank you." He got out of his chair and made a big show of not tripping on it, then did something that we all really should have been expecting. He pushed the brim of his hat back from his eyes and stared right at Droog, then plucked the diamonds pin out of his doll and promptly disappeared. 

   "Something tells me," P.I. said, "that he isn't too terribly fond of you, Mister Diamonds." 

   "So I set his cat on fire that one time," Droog said, dismissively. "Big deal." 

   "Set it on fire!" I exclaimed. "At least tell me it deserved it. Tell me something." 

   "It pissed on Boxcars's dog's bed." 

   "And? That's no reason to set a cat on fire!" 

   "That dog was a purebred doberman. Ante, we called him. Trained him in German. Used to enter him in dog fights. And he was allergic to cats." Droog shrugged noncommittally. "It was the last time Boxcars left that mutt's bed outside, let me tell you. Slick lit him up. Last time that cat pissed on anything, too, because I lit it up." 

   "My God." I slumped forward and rested my head on the table. I couldn't help waiting to laugh despite how gruesome the idea of setting a cat on fire was. Despite how gruesome the whole situation was. 

   Back when I was on the force, we had this running gag that interrogators usually cracked before the folks they were interrogating. It was only now that I realized it says absolutely true. I was glad I'd never volunteered to interrogate those select few criminals whose intellect s absolutely massive-- the ones that always wanted to ask the questions. The ones who psychoanalyzed your every move and tried to get you to slip up and say something that his lawyer interpreted as a dismissal. Give me your tired, your Hannibals... 

   Yeah, those were the worst ones. Everyone who interrogated of them always left the interview room with a look that said he'd just been told his deepest fear and fret by someone who had no right to know it in the first place. They used to switch them out every ten minutes and it still wasn't enough to stop people resigning when a big, dangerous case came up. There are always the crazy ones, they said. You just have to be a little crazier or you won't get jack shit done. 

   Thank God we hadn't had a Hannibal yet.


	12. All In, Part II

   "This an interrogation or an art gallery? All I see's statues." 

   I hadn't heard Crowbar come in, which was interesting, because he seemed to delight in making as much noise as humanly possible. 

   "Siddown," Droog barked. 

   Crowbar narrowed his eyes, sneering. He sat. Even if Droog was a Midnighter, Crowbar wasn't stupid enough to challenge him. He was outnumbered and outclassed, and painfully aware of it. 

   "So what the Hell are you--" 

   "I'll ask the questions, Seven. Not you." 

   Crowbar said something under his breath. I sounded like Nadsat, the pidgin language that Droog had grown up on. Droog snapped back with something that sounded awfully insulting. 

   Crowbar literally sat at him. "Fine. The Hell do you want from me." 

   "You tell me." 

   "I didn't kill nobody." 

   "Anybody." 

   "What?" 

   "'I didn't kill anybody.' Double negatives make a positive, you stupid bratchny. You say you didn't kill nobody, you killed some poor moodge. Understand?" 

   "I didn't kill anybody." 

   "Better." 

   Watching Droog and Crowbar squabble was like watching two accomplished fencers spar. Droog would bark something, Crowbar would snap back, P.I. would scribble it down in his little notebook. I just watched; I couldn't find the words or the heart to interrupt any of them. I just watched them go back and forth. It was like a verbal fusillade was taking place in front of me. 

   Droog cleared his throat and said, "Sleuth." 

   "I _said_ , is this dumbass even listening?" Crowbar waved his hand in front of my face. It was clear that this one hadn't gotten anywhere in life by being polite. 

   "Watch your mouth, pal," I said. 

   "D.D. asked if you wanted to ask me anything." 

   Droog and I said simultaneously, "Don't call me D.D." -- "Don't call him D.D." 

   "Do you have questions or can I go back to my miserable existence now." 

   "Ah, no, you should be good. Tell Stitch not to send Snowman in. Just skip straight to Sawbuck." 

   "Sure, if they can fit his ass through the door." He barked a laugh, then almost knocked the chair over in his hurry to get out of the room. 

   I decided not to ask Droog whence his sudden attitude had come, but it turned out I didn't need to in the first place: he volunteered that information. 

   "You know the way Slick looks at Snowman when she's just said something irritating and he wants so bad to hit her but he just won't? Because that's the one thing he won't do? He'll threaten her all day long but he won't ever actually lay a hand on her." 

   "Yeah," I said. "What are you getting at--" 

   "For me it's the same way with him, only I'll hit him. I'll knock him down and I will break him. I'll feed him his teeth if he calls me D.D. again." He looked mad enough to spit nails. "We're _not_ friends." 

   It was the most animated I'd ever actually seen him. He was veritably steaming out of the ears. And all because Crowbar'd gotten chummy. You think you know a guy. Calling people by their initials was something only good friends ever did, at least around here, so I understood why he was angry. Maybe it s a little different where Crowbar had come from. Maybe he just hadn't quite picked up on that subtle intricacy of culture. But for some reason I think he just did it because it bothered the everloving daylights out of Droog. What a stupid thing to do. On Diamonds Droog's bad side was someplace I never wanted to be again. 

   "You won't have to talk to him anymore," I said. "We'll let P.I. handle that. Careful to all living creatures, yada yada." 

   The Inspector seemed grateful that we were finally including him in the conversation. He took the opportunity to speak. "The only important thing you need to know about Crowbar's testimony is that he says the murder weapon was a handgun, but he never touched it. He does admit to, er-- to having beaten the victim postmortem with his customary weapon, but he didn't actually murder anyone. Just took his bottomless pent-up frustration out on the poor boy after someone else did. Ghastly." 

   I opened my mouth to speak only to be cut off by something that sounded like radio static. I couldn't tell where it was coming from at first, but eventually I saw that a patch of air seemed to be shimmering. It fizzled, wiggled like heat waves on a hot pavement, slowly began to solidify. Within moments Doc Scratch was standing in front of us. 

   "Speaking of ghastly," Droog said dryly. 

   "Now, now, Mister Diamonds. You know as well as I that I am an excellent host. I advise you to mind your temper." 

   Droog sneered but kept his mouth shut. 

   "I'm afraid," Doc Scratch said, "that I'll have to ask you to leave the room momentarily. Your presence had been requested outside." 

   "It has?" 

   Doc Scratch held up a single finger just as Stitch poked his head inside the door. "We need you out 'ere for just a tick, mates-- oh, 'ello, Doc." 

   " _Now_ your presence has been requested." He nodded to P.I. and me-- a strange-looking gesture when you don't have a real face to speak of-- and walked out the door. Why he hadn't used it to come in was a mystery. The Felt as a whole sure had a flair for dramatic entrances. 

   Talking about dramatic entrances, ours wasn't-- for the very specific reason that what was going on in the middle of the parlor was far more interesting. 

   Several of the couches had been pushed aside to reveal a huge area rug. I hadn't noticed it before because everything in the room was so green that nobody could really tell where one piece of furniture began and another ended. 

   Quarters and Crowbar were standing on the rug, staring each other down. Quarters had a pistol in his hand; Crowbar had his crowbar. If we had to bet, my money was on Quarters. 

   "P.I., let me see your notes," I said. He handed me the notepad without taking his eyes off the two men in the center of the room. If I knew him-- and I did-- he'd taken overly meticulous notes on exactly what had been said, possibly including the exact make and model of the gun that had killed Clubs Deuce. Or at least a very detailed description of it. 

   It was a bingo: the gun on the paper was the same gun Quarters was holding, no doubt about it. I had him at the scene-- both scenes-- and I had him holding the murder weapon. I had him connected to the first scene through testimony and evidence-- the horseshoe. I had reasonable cause to assume he meant to kill Crowbar-- the thirty-seven cipher. All I needed was one measly little God damned confession, and there was no way I was going to get it just standing here. 

   "What the Hell?" I asked no one in particular. Itchy popped out of the woodwork and started yapping at me. 

   "Crowbar as telling him about how he told you about what Clover told you about when Clubs Deuce died." 

   I blinked, confused. I hadn't caught a word of that. Why did the kid have to talk so fast? "Come again?" 

   "Crowbar told Quarters that he confessed to being in the vault when Quarters killed Clubs Deuce. He told him that he told you who all was there. So Quarters pulled his gun and somebody threw Crowbar his crowbar and now they're fighting!" 

   Oh, okay. That actually explained everything. "And Scratch hasn't stepped in yet?" 

   Itchy shook his head so quickly that I could almost hear his brain rattling around inside his head like marbles in a shoebox. "Nope. Miss Snowman neither." 

   Snowman was sitting on the stairwell, dangling her legs through the spaces between the spindles. She winked at me (or maybe at Droog) when I caught her eye. What a gal. 

   Crowbar took a step towards Quarters. Wherever Quarters went Cans went too; he was sort of hovering around the entire scene, cracking his knuckles and trying to predict what everyone would do next. He said, "I wouldn't do that if I was you." 

   "If you was me you'd have two brain cells to rub together." 

   "If I was you I'd have let the Crew take me out a long time ago." 

   "I'd have saved them the trouble." 

   Cans rolled his shoulders. If Crowbar didn't shut up, he was in for it. 

   "I suggest you rescind your original statement and apologize to the detective for providing him with false information," Quarters said. What a windbag. From what I knew of Crowbar, all the words in the world wouldn't convince him to change his mind. He was like a dog that had locked its jaws on something small and furry. He'd never let go. 

   "Not a chance." He paused, and what he said next made Quarters go ballistic. "Fourteen." 

   Quarters's pointer finger twitched an inch closer to the actual trigger. At least he practiced good trigger discipline, even if he was a homicidal person of questionable sanity. "What did you call me." It wasn't a question; it was a challenge. The deadliest kind of 'come get me': the kind where everyone says watching. 

   "I called you fourteen. It's all you are. A number. A lap dog." 

   "Say that one more time and I swear I will kill you," Quarters snarled. 

   Crowbar stepped back. "Ain't worth it," he decided. He turned his back to Quarters and Cans and began to walk away. He seemed to think better of that idea, though, and proceeded to make a colossal target of himself: "Numbers is just numbers. You killed Clubs Deuce and you killed Trace and I bet you'll kill me too. But you know what that makes you?" 

   "Enlighten me." 

   Crowbar didn't even turn around when he said, very quietly, "Makes you a fuckin' coward." 

   You would've been able to hear a pin drop if something much, much louder hadn't happened first. Without hesitation, without a second though, Quarters extended his arm and emptied all six of the revolver's chamber straight into Crowbar, who dropped to his knees, muttered _fourteen_ , and fell. He didn't say anything else. 

   Everyone in the room began to roar, shouting over one another, either in encouragement of what had taken place or in condemnation of it. The only ones silent were me, P.I., and Droog. Even Snowman and the Doc were saying something, even if they were just trying to break up any one of the fights that had broken out. 

   What got me was that Crowbar hadn't tried to run. Hadn't tried to talk anyone down. He just stood there and let himself get shot. There was no way he hadn't known it was going to happen; why hadn't he tried to stop it? 

   Now was no time to stand around pondering someone else's mortality. Doc Scratch flashed into the room and the gun vaporized. Nobody asked why. Clover was hiding behind Fin, who was attempting to hide behind Snowman. P.I. had flinched behind me. Droog and Snowman hadn't batted an eyelash, but Droog's hand had instinctively gone inside his jacket just in case he needed to bring out some leaden motivation. 

   Quarters locked eyes with me even amid the chaos. Despite all the noise that had erupted after the gunshots, I could hear him crystal clear. "Shall we begin our interview? I doubt, now, that you'll be wanting to speak with anyone else." 

   "You're damn right," I heard myself say. I was removed from it all, somehow. An overseer. In the fight but not of it. 

   Droog and P.I. filed into the room. I followed them and Quarters followed me. He pulled the door shut gently behind him. 

   The Inspector was standing in the corner with Droog. I understood. 

   This was my case. It had always been my case. 

   I took a seat. 

   "Why'd you do it?" I said. It was the only question that really made sense to ask. 

   Quarters looked at me, smiled coldly, shook his head. "I see no use in trying to explain myself to you, Detective. You've never understood." 

   "Understood what?" 

   "The ones like me. The Hannibals." He smiled grimly. "The ones who kill for whatever reason strikes their fancy any particular morning. The ones who know what you're thinking, who seem to be one step ahead of you the whole time. Did you like my equation? My hint?" 

   "Tell me why Clubs Deuce is dead." 

   "Why does anyone die, Problem Sleuth?" He shook his head at me, and at each of us in turn. "Inspector? Mister Diamonds? No one knows the answer." 

   "Stop playing games." 

   "This is all a game, Problem Sleuth. It's always been a game to me. Watching everyone. Learning them." 

   I shook my head. "They're people. You can't learn them all. You can't predict what they're going to do because they all have complex thoughts and emotions and you might think you know what to do with that-- but you don't, do you, Quarters? You have no idea. You panicked. Got sloppy If you'd had your way Clover wouldn't've carried Clubs to the Morningstar and I'd have no idea about your whole _game_." 

   He was an egotist of the highest degree. He only wanted to talk about himself. Other people were boring. Other people were Hell. For a guy like him, the happiest place was curled up in his own mind, orchestrating something grandiose and overarching. He loved to challenge himself, and he got so much satisfaction out of watching others fail to understand what was second nature to him. It was disconcerting. 

   He was unnervingly quiet for a long time. "Yes," he said, finally. "Yes, I got sloppy. There were so many variables, you know." 

   "I know. I spent hours trying to piece together your little hints. The horseshoe, the pin? Cute. Real cute." 

   "I thought they were a nice touch." 

   "How'd you get Trace and Crowbar to listen to you in the first place?" 

   "I bribed Trace." 

   "That one was kind of obvious. And Crowbar?" 

   Quarters's face was utterly serene. "Seven was a man who didn't like anyone else to know what he was thinking. He was so confident that he was untouchable-- _so_ confident. I had to destroy it." 

   "Why'd you kill Clubs Deuce?" 

   "Convenience," he said. "I studied the way everyone interacts-- the way Clover and Clubs deuce used to play hide and go seek; the way Stitch barely put up with them-- he knew he shouldn't; he knew the Doctor would be so furious-- but did it anyway out of gratitude. The way Miss Snowman looks at Spades Slick when he says such awful things to her. The way Matchsticks and Fin think they're being so secretive but really everyone knows exactly what's going on. I understood everything and I knew I had to take it down from the inside. Oh, don't you see? It was so perfect. I was so _bored_ , and oh, it was such a beautiful web of interactions that I couldn't resist wrecking the whole damn thing. 

   "So I began at the weakest point. Miss Snowman's higher-than-normal tolerance of Clover. 

   "She didn't know why I was asking her to send Crowbar to get Clover for us. Neither did Crowbar, to be honest. He was sort of-- not exactly tagging along, but... not pulling his fair share of the weight to our plan, I suppose? It was then I decided I wouldn't be able to let him participate in the entire affair. It was then that I--" 

   I had been waiting patiently for the never ending story to finally come to a close, but it just hit me what he'd said. Before I had time to say anything, though, Pickle INspector seemed to read my mind. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. I believe I'm misunderstanding you. You killed three people because you were _bored_?" 

   "Yes." 

   "You'll rot, you--" 

   "And I get bored so easily, you know," he said. He pulled the revolver out of his jacket and aimed it at me. 

   "Whoa, whoa, hey, now, put that away. It's not even loaded." 

   "Perhaps it's an artifact. Are you certain it only holds six shots, Problem Sleuth? Are you willing to play the game?" 

   "I--" I wasn't. I had no idea. It hadn't even occurred to me. "I don't play games." 

   He pointed the gun Droog-wards. "Perhaps the Midnighter likes games." 

   I was willing to bet money that Droog's hand had been wrapped around the grip of his pistol since Quarters had shut the door. He wasn't necessarily paranoid; just careful. I didn't blame him. I found myself wishing I'd brought my gun. My gun... I'd bought her at a pawn shop what seemed like a hundred years ago. They called her the Arbiter. She'd never let me down. But right now? I'd let her down. 

   "I don't." 

   "Don't even think about it," P.I. said, drawing a gun of his own. I didn't even know he owned one. I'd always figured they were too loud too suddenly for him. I guessed I'd been mistaken. I was learning a lot of things today. 

   "Put the pistol down, Mister Quarters." 

   "Unlikely." 

   "I'll make it easier for you. Go ahead and shoot. You'll be doing me a favor." 

   Quarters narrowed his eyes. "You're bluffing." 

   "So are you." 

   "Try me, Inspector." 

   Pickle Inspector looked at me and said, "Get out of the way." I'd barely managed to get out of my chair before he fired a single shot right at Quarters's heart. There was a bang as the gunpowder exploded. It seemed like it took an eternity for the bullet to actually hit. I swore I could hear the bullet whistling as it cut through the air; I swore I could hear it make a sort of pulpy thud as it found its target. There was a gasp, another thud-- metallic; Quarters's dubiously loaded revolver falling to the floor as his body went limp as wet noodles. He slumped forward; he head hit the table. He didn't move anymore. 

   P.I. really went the extra mile; he stepped over to the man's corpse and stuck his foot in its guts for good measure. "Hell would freeze over, Mister Quarters, before I left you turn on your comrades like that again. Disgraceful." 

   We were all quiet for a very long time after that. I didn't know Ellery Queen was capable of killing a man, but so he was. It didn't seem to me like he'd even batter an eyelash. Maybe he and Quarters had some kind of backstory I didn't know about-- after all, I had been missing a lot since I'd stopped being a morning person. 

   I wasn't so sure my voice would work again when I talked, but it did. "I was expecting more explosions. More hard-boiled beatdown word-fights." 

   "You watch too many films," Droog said. 

   Stitch stuck his head through the door once again: our guardian angel in green. "I 'eard a gun; are you alr-- well. If that don't beat all." 

   P.I. still had his eyes fixed on the dead man, as though he might get up and torment us all again. Droog was standing by and trying not to do whatever it was he did that passed for laughing. I'd heard stories about Droog's laugh. Suffice to say I was glad he was keeping it in. 

   "Mister Queen, 'd'you shoot this man?" 

   The Inspector nodded. 

   "Good on you, mate," Stitch said. "He was a right prick, 'e was. Always harassin' the young'n's; Fin and Clover and them. Glad to see 'im go." 

   "Stitch, take him home, will you," Droog said. 

   "Not a problem, mate." It kind of unnerved me that he knew where we lived, but not so much that I couldn't let it go. "Come along, then." He shook P.I. gently by the shoulders to snap him out of his thousand-yard stare. "See you lot later." 

   After Stitch had left with P.I., who he'd somehow coaxed into a conversation, I bent down and took Quarters' hat off. "There's somebody I think wants this," I said. 

   Droog smirked. He knew exactly what I was thinking. 

   We left the interrogation room with the dead man on the floor. 

   The parlor had mostly emptied out after the big fight. Cans was sitting dejectedly on a couch-- probably Stitch had told him about Quarters as he'd left with the Inspector in tow. The Doc had just left; I could tell by the faint smell of ozone. Die was trying to show Doze how to get Crowbar's body on a stretcher while Itchy was standing by trying to keep himself from jumping in and teaching Doze himself. Die was much too slow for Itchy, I could tell. 

   Matchsticks and Fin, bless their little star-crossed hearts, were trying not to look at each other for too long, sitting on another couch further away from the rest of them. I rolled my eyes, but I was happy for the dumb lugs. They deserved each other, let's say that much. But the way they were blushing like schoolboys reminded me of the first time I'd met Helen... 

   Helen. What the Hell was I going to do about Helen? Was it worth it to patch things up? I kept second-guessing myself. It was like watching a cat chase a laser-- back and forth so fast you can't watch it or your neck'll break. I sighed. Maybe if I stopped worrying about it things would work themselves out. 

   I dragged myself out of my own head only because there was something important I had to do. Clover, more still a child than anything, was sitting on Snowman's lap, chatting to her. I moseyed over to them. Snowman glanced up at me with those bright green eyes. "Clover," she said, "someone has a gift for you." 

   I held out Quarters' hat. "I know it ain't much, kid, but I want you to know that asshole's dead. 

   "I only wish I could've found him out sooner so I could get you this. I'm real sorry about your pal-- I know what it's like to have somebody mean that much to you and then some idiot goes and does something stupid and takes them away. Most of the time there's nothing you can do about it. But you're a good kid, Clover, a real good kid. You deserve the best friends you can have. And I guess you got 'em. 

   "You know where I live," I said, and laid the hat down next to him on the couch. I didn't wait for him to say anything before I strode away. Droog followed. 

   I knew it wouldn't be any good trying to ask him if he thought I did that right. That was one of the reasons I didn't like getting tied up with gangs. They always had each other's backs, and there were just too many of 'em to look after. Me, I was fine with Team Sleuth and maybe the Midnight Crew if I ever needed backup. So I kept mum about it. 

   When we were almost to the front door was when I found the courage to say anything. I was going to say something brave, but what came out was, "Shall we go and see what time it is out there in the real world?" 

   Droog tipped the brim of his hat up and lit a cigarette for himself and then one for me. "Lunch if it's early, dinner if it's late." 

   That sounded good to me.


	13. Forward Motion, or The Swing of the Clock

   It was dark outside. I could almost see the stars despite the city's ubiquitous light pollution. 

   "What time is it? My watch stopped." 

   He held up his arm and pushed the sleeve back a little to show me his bare wrist. "I don't wear a watch in there. Lost too many good ones that way. You want to know, ask somebody." 

   "Well, what the Hell. Who cares what time it is; it's dinnertime." 

   His customary snark had returned. Everything was as back to normal as it could be. I wondered how P.I. was getting on with having killed somebody. I hoped Stitch wasn't harassing him too badly. 

   As we walked along, my mind wandered down different streets. Now that the case was over, well and truly over, I couldn't keep putting it off. What was I going to do about Helen? Should I go and talk to her? Ask Ace to call her? Wait for her to call me? Was it even worth thinking about? Too many questions and no idea how to answer a single one of them. 

   I tried to make smoke rings to distract myself. I ended up nearly choking instead. Droog smirked, rolled his eyes (non-threateningly, this time) and showed me how to do it. 

   "I bet Snowman can do dragons and stuff. Or that thing where you blow soap bubbles and there's smoke inside them." 

   "She's awful at this. Chokes worse than you do. Last time she did smoke rings she couldn't figure out how to talk again for ten whole minutes. Swear to God." 

   "My God, she's capable of failing at anything?" 

   "It'd surprise you." 

   There was something that was bothering me. Had been for a long time. I had to know. "Can she tie a knot in a cherry stem?" Droog look at me like I'd just said something sacrilegious, or possibly insulted his mother. "Well, can she?" 

   "Yeah," he said. "But I taught her." 

   I choked again. "Where are we going, anyway?" I asked quickly, to change the subject. 

   "Walking until you keel over." 

   "Are we there yet?" 

   "Did you really--" 

   "Yes. I did." 

   "We're going somewhere, and before you ask, we'll get there when we get there." 

   "Damn. I had my heart set on pestering the daylights out of you." 

   "That's begging the question there's still daylights left in me. Especially ones you can pester." 

   I shrugged and we walked. I looked at the all-but-invisible stars occasionally, as if to make sure they were really there. I'd been in danger today, I realized. Real, tangible, 'my God there's a man who's just killed somebody sitting right in front of me and I'm not armed at all' danger. P.I. had been through it and Droog probably went through it every day between Slick and Snowman. That had to have made us some kind of comrades. Three frankly inexperienced fellas playing detective went through a battle and three people came out with a better understanding of each other. I knew I could call Droog in the middle of the night and he'd make his way halfway across town to wash a spider down the drain for me. He'd whine about it the whole time in his own special way, but he'd do it. I could ask anything in the world of P.I. and he'd try his damnedest to help me get it, or find someone who could. 

   "Hey," I said. "Did you know Doc Scratch and Death planned all that? Everything that just happened in there?" 

   "Yeah." 

   "Whatever happened to that taxi driver? The one whose cab you hijacked?" 

   "Hell if I know." 

   "What do you think Quarters meant by--" 

   "Do you ever shut up?" 

   "Nosiree." 

   I chattered and he shot holes in my cheerful little hot-air balloon of conversation; it was a much better alternative to staying quiet and drowning in introspection. We took streets I'd either never been on or had forgotten since I'd been on them last. 

   "Hey, Droog." 

   "Jesus, what do you want now?" 

   "What do you think about Helen?" 

   "I told you. She don't deserve you." 

   "You really think that?" 

   He looked me up and down, then said, "Yeah." 

   After that, the street went as quiet as it'd been the morning after I'd gotten that first phone call about the case. So much had changed in three days; it seemed like weeks or more had passed. It was frightening and exhilarating all at the same time. I hated it. Couldn't wait to go home and sleep for at least a solid day (that was, if Ace didn't come knocking with a cheap six-pack and his dart board. Drunk darts was my favorite game and quite possibly one of my only weaknesses.) 

   In a way, I was glad Droog hadn't said any more about Helen. I felt absolved of any duty towards her, in a way. Like she was outside my sphere of being. I didn't need her, honestly. I had Team Sleuth, and at least 25% of the remaining Crew, as far as I could tell. I had at least part of the Felt looking after me. Maybe when Clover grew up a bit, mentally I mean, he'd have my back. 

   Yeah, maybe I had needed Helen, at one point, but she got in my way too much. If she was up to it I'd still like to be social with her, but I wasn't going to put any special effort into it. 

   Things had worked out, I guessed. 

   I didn't notice that Droog had stopped when I walked straight into him. 

   "That means we're here, stupid." 

   "Yeah, yeah." I looked up at the sign hanging over the door: the place was called the Siren. 

   "Behave," Droog said. "They don't like detectives here." 

   I rocked back on my heels and looked harder at the Siren sign. It bore a mermaid looking coquettishly out from behind a few strategically placed strands of kelp at anyone who cared to look at her. "You sure this place is honest?" 

   "As honest as the day is long." He didn't offer any more explanation; just ushered me through the door and said something to the sleepy-looking woman standing at the hostess' station. He didn't let me out of his sight the whole time. 

   We ended up in a booth way in the back, same as he had the other morning. There was a dame sitting there. 

   She looked short and sort of plump; her dress was black and strapless and rather long for an evening dress for the sort of establishment we found ourselves in. Her hair was platinum blonde and done up in a tight bun; it contrasted quite attractively with her caramel-colored skin. I wondered if she realized there was a paintbrush stuck in her hair, or if she'd done it on purpose. I knew some Bohemians that wore all kinds of odd things. Maybe she was an artist. 

   "Who's this?" I asked, not unimpressed. She was rather pretty. 

   "Friend of mine," Droog said, sliding into the seat next to her. I sat down across from him. "Damsel in distress, if you will. Miss Paint, this is the fabled Problem Sleuth." 

   "Bonne nuit, Monsiuer Sleuth." French. I love the French. Wonderful bread. I wondered who the Hell she was and how the Hell Droog knew such a classy-looking lady. "It's very nice to finally meet you." 

   "Likewise, miss." Finally? Did she know me from somewhere? Were people finally talking about me? 

   "So, James. Miss Paint gives me a call this morning just after Ellery hangs up and says she has a problem needs sleuthing. I tell her I knew somebody. Tell her we'll meet at the Siren tonight." 

   "Is that so." I was so intrigued that I hardly minded that he hadn't called me Sleuth. 

   "Go on," Droog said to her. "Tell him." 

   "Well you see, Monsieur Sleuth, I was working in my studio when I got this very interesting phone call from someone I 'ad never met before. They were asking something very strange." 

   "Yeah? I'm all about strange, darling." 

   "They asked all kinds of things about my art and my studio, and most importantly they asked about my jewelry." Her accent twisted jewelry into _zhewelry_. "I didn't think anything of it-- I 'ad other things to do that day; I am very busy, you see-- until I returned 'ome to find that my 'ouse 'ad been burgled. All my paintings were missing-- but the jewelry this person 'ad asked about was still there. 

   "What stood out to me the most was that the caller 'ad asked if I 'ad ever met anyone by the name of Problem Sleuth." Here she cut herself off to lean in conspiriatorially and whisper, "These people think I am in the 'abit of consulting with detectives!" she said, almost laughing, as if it were quite the joke. "So I told them no, goodness, no, of course not, what a funny name, but they seemed very sure I 'ad. So because of this strange occurrence I put in another call to my good friend Monsieur Diamonds to ask if 'e knew anyone by that name. Then I told him what 'ad 'appened and 'e said I must meet you as soon as was humanly possible." 

   "So somebody called your house and asked about your jewelry, then broke in and... didn't steal it? How odd. Was anything else missing?" 

   "That is exactly what 'appened-- and I do not know what else was missing. I was too upset to check. Do you 'ave any idea why this might 'ave 'append?" She learned forward. "Oh, Monsieur Sleuth, will you take my case?" 

   "Well, I don't know..." 

   "You must 'ave gathered by now that I am modestly wealthy..." 

   I grinned at Droog; he smirked. Miss Paint clasped her hands together expectantly. 

    "Problem Sleuth," I said, "always takes the case."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is kind of sappy, having an acknowledgements section and all, but I'd really like to thank my English teacher for getting on my ass to finish this way back in November for NaNoWriMo. Bless her heart, she had no idea what she was reading, but she stuck with me 'til the end and told me I'd better have some kind of closure with Helen at the end or she was going to kill me. (I'm still not happy with it. Sorry, Moe!)
> 
> I'd like to thank my tumblr followers as well, because god knows if they hadn't put up with me spamming this for the entire month of November I wouldn't be able to put it up on AO3 int he state it is now. 
> 
> And I guess I am thanking you as well, reader! Without you there wouldn't be a story at all. :o
> 
> \-- redibis


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